Sarah and Chuck VS the Charade
by Neale
Summary: Largely AU. Sarah, Chuck, Ellie, Casey, General Beckman, Jeff, Anna, Mr Colt, Sydney and others are rather different from the series. There will be CHARAH, of course. - What Just Happened? Winding up here
1. Chapter 1

**I'm trying to get momentum on CVN again, but it's difficult, so I thought I'd try something else.**

 **In this world, Sarah is the CIA's (or at least Graham's) version of IAD, so as well as being their top spy. She was supposedly assigned to work Larkin for two years (and had to sleep with him to pull off her cover, far less than he wanted but far more than she did) to get the dirt on him, but Graham's been playing games, who'da thunk it? A number of others aren't what they seem, either.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this ain't the real world.**

* * *

Agent Sarah Walker was furious as she headed into the stupid retail store, after two years of working that sleazy bastard Larkin, Graham takes her off the assignment temporarily for one mission in Budapest to check out someone else and Larkin somehow breaks into a highly secure NSA facility? Something stank here, there was no way that Larkin had the ability to get past the security controls to break in, now the fact that he was killed trying to get out though, THAT she could believe.

So after Graham's screw up caused this to happen, he tells her she has to get to California to fix his mess (luckily she was already here), that part at least was believable, that's what she'd been doing ever since that evil bastard managed to blackmail her into joining the CIA, because while she was OK with the idea of her father getting what was coming to him, she couldn't let Graham go after Mama.

She knew Graham was playing games though, because she'd originally been sent here to look into Larkin's buddy Woodcomb and try and retrieve what Larkin stole. She could believe that Larkin would send it to him because they were tight, she'd heard all about Larkin growing up with him back in Connecticut and knew that he and Larkin were two of a kind. But now she was here though, Graham was sending her after some other guy who'd supposedly been Larkin's buddy at Stanford? That just didn't make sense, Larkin had never talked about this guy, something wasn't right with this!

When she walked in the door she scanned the store, recognising her target over at the 'Nerd Herd' (what the hell was that?) counter with some retarded Latino leprechaun yammering at him while he was trying to speak to someone on the phone, and she smiled to herself as she advanced on the target, this should be easy! He was beat-boxing something about Vicky Vale? that the other one said, which was kind of cute, if dorky, and she had to smile when he dropped the phone as soon as he looked up and saw her. She was totally unprepared for this wholesome admiration that she was getting from him though, she was all too used to those leering looks that made feel unclean, like she was getting from that other little turd, NOT the look she was getting from Chuck that made her feel warm inside.

They made their introductions, and Chuck's banter was cute, though his buddy didn't appreciate it when he shot down what he thought was his chance of making himself look suave. But Chuck's eyes and smile were really throwing her off balance, so she had to fall back on the standards, coming out with the lame old 'oh, my phone is broken' ploy. That didn't buy her much time though, as he had it fixed in a jiffy, damn he was good! She was trying to come up with something that would free her from the spell of his eyes, so she was actually relieved when that rude bastard came running up, dragging a little girl in a tutu with him, and pushed in saying that they had to help him because the camera didn't work.

Chuck, took the camera and opened it, to find that there was no tape in it. He was trying to politely point out that it couldn't work without a tape, over the idiot's protestations of 'but it's digital!' and that his wife was going to kill him, as well as the little turd's comments, when he looked at the little girl. She was about to cry, and at that, Chuck turned to HER with an apologetic look, saying 'I'm so sorry' and told the little turd, Morgan, that he needed 'the wall', whatever the fuck that was.

Sarah was stunned, she was the very best at what she did, that was why Graham used her, she worked the best spies and wrapped them around her little finger, but when this little girl looked as though she was going to cry he blew her off? That had NEVER happened to her before! Now she was thinking that there had to be more to this guy, he couldn't be the simple mark he was supposed to be, so she carefully watched and listened to everything he did and said. When he gave the little girl the confidence she needed to go for it by telling her the 'secret' that real ballerinas ARE tall though, Sarah felt a warm gooey feeling that was rapidly spreading through her from her nether regions, that never happened to her before either.

When he'd pulled off the impromptu ballet recital and saved that little girl's day, Chuck turned back to Sarah, but she'd suddenly remembered why his eyes and that smile were so familiar and had such an effect on her, this was fucking Charlie, her 'boyfriend' from when she was three, as his big sister Ellie had kept telling him! Luckily she was saved again, by some Chinese goblin this time, who cut Chuck off and started yammering at him like some demented Asian Hitler, so Sarah took that opportunity to drop her card on the counter and run, as there was no way she could put on the act she'd need to fool Charlie now!

Sarah peeled out of the carpark as quick as she could, her mind going several times faster than the Porsche. What was with this name, Bartowski? That wasn't their name before, what had she been told to call Auntie Mary at the start? 'Missus Bartol', that was it! Why had they changed their name? She had to laugh at herself at that 'Yeah Sammie, why would CHARLIE change his name?'

She went back to the Maison23 to try and sort this out, she couldn't tell Graham that she knew the target, that would just be asking for Graham to go after him, but she KNEW that Charlie wouldn't be tied up with anything that Larkin was doing. When she opened the file that had been delivered while she was out though, she was sure that she knew what was going on, as Charlie was living with his sister, Ellie, and her boyfriend, fucking Woodcomb!

That HAD to be the link, Larkin and Woodcomb were thick as thieves (fitting description for them), so Larkin must have sent it to Woodcomb, and the idiots at the CIA just got it wrong and thought that it went to Charlie. She did wonder what happened to Auntie Mary and Uncle Stefan, but she couldn't worry about that now, her priority was to clear Charlie and get away from here before he recognised her and found out what she'd become, working for Graham!

As flashing her cleavage at Ellie would distract her even less than it did Charlie, and she was more likely to recognise little Sammie now that she was all grown up than Charlie was (given that she'd been nearly eight when Sammie was three and Charlie was four), Sarah decided to use a ninja outfit to mask her identity when she infiltrated their apartment, strapping her breasts as tight as she could stand and moving like a man to minimise the chance of being recognised as a woman, let alone Sammie.

She had no trouble getting into their apartment and went hunting for what it was that Larkin sent, but she ran into another problem, as the only internet connection and computer in the apartment were both in Charlie's room! When Sarah realised that she'd somehow spent over half an hour in there, just looking at Charlie's things, she swore at herself and quickly searched for any external storage devices, not finding any, she unplugged the computer to take back to the local CIA point of presence (because they didn't have stations in the United States as they officially didn't operate on U.S. soil), to clear Charlie and get out of here.

As she was heading for the door to leave, however, it opened and Charlie was there, with that little turd from the store. Sarah put the computer down and assumed the stance, and the little turd started throwing things at her. Sarah noticed something else, though, Charlie was fighting his instincts to engage her, obviously he was covering up because of that other one, so she deflected the things thrown at her back into Charlie to put him off guard. She was paying more attention to Charlie than the turd, though, so SHE was caught off guard when he threw something heavier, and it got Charlie right in the family jewels when she knocked it back, her heart went out to him then.

When the idiot hit him in the head with a vase and had the gall to scream "Do something!" at him, Charlie started advancing on her (and she knew at least some of that pain he was showing was real), so she decided to put an end to this. Throwing the computer to him, she swept his legs out from under him and then kicked him across the room as he caught it, catching the computer in turn and putting it on a shelf while she took out the turd, only to have the shelf collapse and smash the computer into smithereens when she'd done so.

* * *

Sarah took off then, heading straight back to the unofficial CIA station and demanding to see the SAC. When he came out, she threw the keys for the basic black Porsche at him (taking some pleasure from his look of pain as they hit him in the chest) and said "That piece of shit's been seen, so it's compromised, have the Black Carrera Cabriolet that I originally asked for delivered to me at the Maison23 by morning or pack your bags!"

The man puffed his chest out "Who do you think you're talking to agent?.."

When Sarah shoved her credentials in his face, he froze. "Yes of course, Agent Walker, a black Carrera Cabriolet will be delivered and the keys left for you at the desk by morning!"

Sarah nodded, saying "And I need someone to drive me back there now!"

"At once Agent Walker, Johnson! Get the Towncar and drive Agent Walker to the Maison23!"

The man stared at him, wondering what the hell was going on, and he screamed "NOW!" That got him moving.

Once she'd left, he grabbed a bottle of whiskey and downed a quarter of the bottle in one swallow.

The others in the station asked what was so important about that skirt that they had to find her a new car in the middle of the night? At which he stared at them "Are you brain dead? That's Agent Walker, the Ice Queen, Director Graham's fucking Enforcer! If you cross her you're dead! It'll be me she comes for in the morning if she doesn't get that fucking car, so get fucking moving, there better be a pristine black Porsche Carrera Cabriolet waiting for her at the Maison23 when she gets up in the morning or your families will be trying to find out what happened to you, GO!"

* * *

Back in Echo Park, Chuck was watching the surveillance video of what had happened here before he arrived home. Most of it was obvious, this woman, who was for some reason pretending to be a man, was hunting for something in their apartment, but it was the footage from his room that he didn't understand, she'd spent over half an hour in here just looking at his things, she wasn't searching, it appeared as though she was reminiscing!

From the height and build, it was a good bet that it was that beautiful blonde woman, Sarah, who'd come into the store earlier, though any commiseration he may have had for how painful it must have been for her to bind her breasts that tightly was tempered by the bag of frozen peas he was holding to his family jewels at the moment. To be fair though, he had recognised that she was trying to not hurt him too badly, and that the one he should be mad at was Morgan fucking Grimes, none of this damage would have happened to him if it wasn't for Grimes!

Chuck activated the electronic counter measures and initiated a video conference with Aunt D. When she answered, he cut to the chase and asked her what she knew about Sarah Walker? She looked at his image for nearly a minute and then said "She's Director Graham's Enforcer and she's going to arrive in L.A. tomorrow to engage you and try to retrieve what the records show Bryce Larkin sent you. How do you know that name?"

He sighed "She isn't arriving tomorrow, she's here now, she came into the store this afternoon, and she was here tonight. There's something wrong about her Aunt D, I'm sure that I know her from somewhere, and when she was here, she spent over a half an hour here, in my room, looking at my things."

"You mean searching?"

"No, just looking at my things. I've sent you the video files from here, and you should have the footage from the store."

"Yes, I'm looking at the store footage now, you're right Chuck, there's something familiar about her, but I can't put my finger on it. I'll go over the house footage when it's come through, but I was going to call you tonight anyway, is Ellie home?"

"No, she's still at the hospital."

"I'll have to tell her tomorrow then, this is the situation. Bryce Larkin supposedly broke into a highly secure NSA facility last night and stole something extremely valuable..." Chuck snorted and she nodded "I did say 'supposedly', we're looking into what actually happened at the moment. Anyway, Larkin stole the current files for the Intersect project that your father did the initial development on and then blew up the facility, we've got about twenty dead guards and technicians so far. Major Casey shot Larkin as he was trying to escape, but he apparently had the files keyed up to send before he came out, and after Major Casey shot him, he hit 'send' before he died. Here's the strange part through, the records show that he sent these files to you, do you have them?"

Chuck went white and she said "Oh Chuck, what did you do?"

"After my birthday party, I got an email from Larkin, it was a Zork file, that game we wrote together, sort of, back at Stanford, I got rid of Grimes and I answered the Zork prompt."

"Chuck, you're smarter than that! Why would you do such a thing?"

"I know! I was three parts tanked and I guess I was hoping to hear the reason that he and Jill screwed me over like that so I could put it all behind me! Anyway, when I did, the screen started flashing with thousands of images, and the next thing I knew it was morning, I was laying on the floor and Grimes was yammering in my face."

It was Aunt D's turn to go white then "Those images, they were the encoded Intersect files, do you have copies of the files?"

"No, the computer was totally fried, which I guess Sarah would have found out if she hadn't spent so much time doing god knows what in here."

"Shit, that means that Graham's still going to want to get his hands on you. As I said, Walker was supposed to be coming in tomorrow, at the same time as Major Casey, Graham must have wanted to get his hands on you first. I'll have to look into how the hell he got her there so quickly. I'm sending Agent Wu over to spend the night with you for protection until Major Casey gets there!"

"No! Please don't do that Aunt D! Every time she comes over, Anna insists that we need to sleep together to make it more believable, I like Anna, but I DON'T want to sleep with her."

"I'm sorry Chuck, but Agent Walker has a higher kill count than Major Casey, I can't take the risk of leaving you without any protection in case she's got orders to get rid of you."

"Aunt D, you know that I can look after myself, let me do it!"

"Will you shoot first if Agent Walker turns up?" Chuck looked conflicted "Exactly! You'll be trying to work out where you know her from and why she'd be looking through your things like that, and if she has orders to kill you, you'll be dead. I'm sorry Chuck, but I promised your mother that I'd look after you and Ellie, I'm sending Agent Wu!"

Chuck nodded resignedly. Aunt D thought that injecting a little humour here could help "Well at least I know what to get you for your birthday, a new computer!" He nodded again half heartedly, and they wound up the call.

When Anna came over, she gave him the usual enthusiastic kiss at the front door, but once they were in his room, once she'd changed into a tank top and sleep shorts in case anyone knocked on the door, she turned professional and set up in the corner where she could cover both the door and the window. She had a good idea that the admonition that she was there to protect Chuck and nothing else had come at least in part from him, and she wasn't too happy about that!

 **A/N So, does this strike anyone's interest?**


	2. Hello Sammie

**Thanks Nancy and JR (and the rest of you, but I've replied to you ;), a few things that perhaps weren't clear (partly because I cut the scene about Jeff), Jeff and Anna are off the books agents (well, more field analysts though Anna can handle herself) working for Aunt D to protect and support Ellie and Chuck, Ellie and Chuck also work for Aunt D, and Devon is an off the books agent working for Graham, but he's too thick to work out what Ellie, Chuck or the others are.**

 **Usual disclaimers for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this ain't the real world.**

When Ellie got home from her shift at the hospital, she confirmed that Devon was asleep (they knew he was an agent working for someone, but he wasn't good enough to interfere with their operations, so they let him stay while they tried to identify who he was reporting to. Besides, to be honest, the sex was great and Ellie was using him to make up for all those years she missed out on while she was basically being a single mother to Chuck) before she knocked quietly on the door of Chuck's room.

When Anna let her in, she could see that things were brittle between her and Chuck, and guessed that Chuck had done something to get Anna told to back off. She knew how Anna felt about Chuck, and she sympathised with her position, but Chuck was her little brother and she knew what that skank had done to him back at Stanford when she jumped into bed with Larkin (and the others), so she was tempted to point out to Anna that Chuck had been trying to tell her this nicely for ages, oh well.

Ellie nudged Chuck awake, and his first response was "Anna!..oh, hi El" that got Anna a look from Ellie, but she told Chuck that Aunt D had sent her a message that they needed to call her? He nodded and got out of bed, combing his fingers through his curls. Chuck stopped and hooked his thumb at her bedroom with a raised eyebrow, nodding when Ellie just said "asleep" and going to activate the electronic countermeasures and initiate the link to Aunt D in Washington.

She was in bed, of course, and hastily checked to make sure that Roan was decently covered. Roan was too good an agent to sleep through a video conference though, and he rolled over to greet them, getting 'Hi Uncle Roan's from Ellie and Chuck and a 'Hi Roan' from Anna. Aunt D was of course 'Aunt D' to Ellie and Chuck, and 'General' to Anna.

Pleasantries out of the way, Aunt D jumped straight into it, going over the events of the past day and a half. When Ellie heard that Chuck had opened an email from Bryce Fukn Larkin, she clouted him across the back of the head for being so stupid, and telling him that he'd be submitting to a FULL round of tests to ensure that he hadn't damaged himself with it, he just nodded, accepting that he deserved that. Things got interesting when they brought up Sarah Walker on screen, though, Ellie watched the video from the store a few times and then said "Sammie?" and that made Aunt D lean forward to peer closely at the footage, and she nodded "Yes, Ellie, you're right, that's Emma's little girl, she's had some work done, that's why I couldn't pick her before, but now you mention it, her eyes and mannerisms are definitely Samantha's, and Emma's."

Anna took in their reactions (especially Chuck's, as he was staring at the screen in shock) and asked "Can someone explain this to me, please?" Ellie looked embarrassed as she said "I'm sorry Anna, we forgot that you're the only one here who doesn't know about this. Agent Sarah Walker was originally Samantha Blake, Auntie Em's daughter and Chuck's girlfriend when he was four."

Aunt D suddenly said "Oh god! How are we going to tell Emma that her little Sammie is Graham's Enforcer? She knew that she'd been roped into the CIA, but this is so much worse!"

Chuck murmured "I'm not sure that it is Aunt D."

"What are you talking about Chuck? I told you about her kill count, and the stories I've heard about her made my hair stand on end!"

"Exactly Aunt D, they're stories, need I remind you of the stories about YOUR enforcer, Casey, or me, or the Asian assassin, the Lotus for that matter? The numbers they're talking about may be the truth, or they may be exaggerated to build the legend, but that doesn't mean that she's the person that they describe, any more than Casey or I are the mad dog killers that people call us. I may not have recognised her at the time, but when she was with me, Sammie was like the girl I knew, not what you're telling us about Sarah Walker."

Ellie nodded "That's what I'm seeing in those videos too, Aunt D, I don't believe that Sammie's gone, she may have done things that she's ashamed of as Sarah Walker, but Sammie's still there underneath!"

Aunt D looked haggard "I just hope you're right Ellie, so, do we tell Emma about this?"

Ellie and Chuck looked at each other and nodded and Ellie turned back to the screen "Yes! Auntie Em deserves to know about this."

Aunt D nodded and said "OK, stay there" before grabbing the keyboard and hitting some keys so that the screen split and after about a minute, Emma came on screen. After a round of 'Hello Emma 's and 'Hi Auntie Em's, Aunt D said "Emma, we believe that we've located Samantha, is this her?" with that, she played the video of her in the store with Chuck.

Emma nodded with a smile "Yes Di, that's Sammie, is this recent? She looks just the way she did when I saw her yesterday morning."

Aunt D nodded "Well that answers one question, yes, Em, that video was taken yesterday afternoon in Burbank. As you can see she's been sent to engage Chuck on something that blew up, both figuratively and literally, last night" she hesitated before continuing "Emma, has Samantha ever told you about operating under the name of Sarah Walker?"

Emma looked horrified "But that's..." Aunt D nodded "Director Graham's Enforcer, yes, that's who she's engaged Chuck as, she also went to Chuck and Ellie's apartment tonight, disguised as a male ninja (she brought up images from the surveillance footage), we believe to collect what Bryce Larkin sent to him, but she allowed herself to get sidetracked in Chuck's room (bringing up a short video of her looking at Chuck's things), and ultimately left empty handed, which she apparently would have done anyway as Chuck tells us that the computer she was trying to remove was completely fried."

She paused before she continued "She'll have to come back and engage Chuck again, and Chuck and Ellie are certain that she's still Sammie underneath Agent Walker. For that matter, Chuck's point that many of the stories about Graham's Enforcer may well be just that, stories, is quite valid. If we have a chance to talk to her, our best chance of convincing her of what we're telling her is true is if you're involved, will you help us?"

Emma started at the screen "What? Of course I will! You know I'll do anything to get my little girl back Di!"

Aunt D smiled at her "It's been twenty one years Em, but we finally have a chance to bring Sammie home!"

Emma smiled through her tears "Oh I hope so Di, I've been dreaming of this ever since Joe took her away!" She hesitated and then went on "This Sarah Walker thing makes sense, actually, it's been obvious for the past eight years that there was something that she thought she couldn't tell me, that she was ashamed of, and if any of those stories about Sarah Walker were true, what that monster made her do would explain that. I just don't know what he could be holding over her to make her do this. No, yes I do, me."

That caught their attention and Aunt D asked her "What do you mean by that Em?"

"When she dropped off the baby yesterday…." There was a chorus of "WHAT?"s, and Ellie, Aunt D and Emma noted that Chuck looked devastated by that, so Emma hastily clarified "No, not her's! She was on some mission in Budapest, and the CIA Agent she was working with wanted to get his hands on this baby because she was the last legitimate heir to a vast fortune. Sammie got her away, but she couldn't settle her down so she ended up calling me to help get her settled. She made one try to see if she could get the CIA to look after the baby properly, but the answer she got made it clear that if the CIA got their hands on her, she'd be just grist for the mill, they'd probably use her the way that other one was planning and get rid of her when they had the money, so she called me back and asked me if I could look after her. Of course I said yes, and two days later she turned up with this beautiful baby girl. I tried to get her to stay, but she said that she had to go before they traced her to me, and that was why she couldn't see us again, because if she did, she'd lead the CIA, or more to the point Graham, as we now know, to us."

"As you know, since she was a little girl, and she got in contact with me through my mother, because that was the only number she knew how to call, she's understood that I was on the run from the CIA, just as her father was. That was why she never wrote down or told her father any details of how to contact me, or where I was living, that was one thing he gave her that I'll thank him for, that perfect memory of his. Anyway, the only reason she took the chance to come to me yesterday was to deliver the baby to me, and she was adamant that she had to get away before anyone could trace her there. She's always been careful not to do anything to lead anyone to me, to keep me safe, so that must be what Graham's holding over her, do what he says or he'll drag me back, and it won't be safe analyst work like I was doing before this time."

They were all horrified by what she was saying, but as she said, it was the only thing that made sense, Sammie was working for Graham to protect her.

Chuck cleared his throat, and they tried to ignore the tears in his eyes as he spoke "Under this scenario, she'll have to contact me again to try to find out what I have, so I'll wait for her move. The obvious tactic is to get me to take her out on a date, so she can have the opportunity to get more out of me. When she does, I think the best thing is for me to tell her that I don't have a car and I only have the use of the Nerd Herder for work. She'll go along with that and say that she has a car, and we'll arrange for her to pick me up here. When we get here, Ellie can show some sign of recognising her or something and suggest that they have a talk, get her in here and you can talk to her."

Ellie shook her head "No, WE'LL talk to her, it was obvious from that video that she still cares for you, so when I get her in here I'll call you in."

Chuck went to argue, but Emma shook her head. "No Chuck, Ellie's right, I know my girl and she still cares for you, though part of what I was seeing was more than that" she added this last with a smile. He would have asked what she meant by that, but the knowing smiles on her, Ellie's, Aunt D's and Uncle Roan's faces told him that he didn't want to discuss it, especially not with a pissed off Anna in the room.

They agreed that this was the plan, and with that, Auntie Em, Aunt D and Uncle Roan signed off. As soon as they'd signed off, Anna angrily grabbed her bag and threw it on the bed, saying "Well apparently you don't need to be protected from this woman, so I'm going home!" Chuck looked at Ellie, nodding to the door, and she nodded, slipping out and closing it behind her.

Anna had thrown her weapons in the bag and started to get changed before Chuck managed to get her to stop and talk to him, though she defiantly refused to put her top back on for the talk. He pointed out that it would look strange to Devon if she was gone in the morning, after he saw their greeting when she got here, and asked her what was wrong. At that she hit him and started crying, saying "What's wrong? You've rejected me for five fukn years, saying that that skank from Stanford left you unable to deal with women, and I've tried to accept that, as hard as it's been, but this woman that you haven't seen since you were little kids and we don't still know for sure isn't here to kill you waltzes into your life, and you're ready to welcome her with open arms? What's fukn wrong? You, you bastard!"

When Chuck went to say something she started up again "I saw you at the store! The others are right, she was into you, but you were into her too!" Chuck pulled her into his arms as she cried, and their watchers, Aunt D and Roan, were surprised when he looked up at the screen and gave a series of hand signals behind Anna's back. These signals weren't 'fuck off and stop watching us!' though, they were directions to a series of files that had to be activated that night.

Meanwhile, Chuck quietly explained to Anna that yes, he'd missed Sammie ever since her father took her away when he was five, because he'd never felt as close to anyone else as he'd felt to her, and that feeling came back when he saw her, and yes, he was also attracted to her now as a woman. He tried to get it through to Anna that it wasn't that he didn't find her attractive, it was just that he hadn't felt that connection with anyone since Sammie.

That of course meant that he had to explain about Jill, too, so he told her about how Jill was at the end of a long wild period after his parents disappeared where he was sleeping with just about any girl who wanted him, trying to find that connection that he'd lost in Sammie, and also deal with his parents' disappearance. He explained that Jill had convinced him she was totally committed to him, so he'd tried to do the right thing and stick by her, which only made the betrayal when he caught her screwing Larkin and found out about all the others so much worse. So he hadn't been lying to her when he told her that what happened with Jill had made it impossible to trust or relate to women, he hadn't been with a woman since her.

Eventually Anna cried herself out and fell asleep in his arms, and he followed soon after. Aunt D and Roan cut the connection with tears in their eyes, and replayed the segment where he gave the hand signals to locate the files. When they did, they debated looking into the files to see what they were before they activated them, but Aunt D suddenly reached a decision and just activated them as requested. Chuck was never self serving or nefarious, if he insisted that these files needed to be activated NOW, he would have a good reason to do so, and it would be for the good of the group. She did send him a message asking what she'd just put into motion after she'd done so, though.

In the morning, Ellie brought them some coffee, when she saw the almost naked Anna asleep in Chuck's arms (her 'sleep shorts' were rather small panties), her eyebrows went up, and she sat down at the desk, putting the mugs down before picking her own up to sip her coffee (years ago, before Devon came on the scene, they'd found some great mugs with handles that meant that you could securely carry three or four in one hand and they'd bought a dozen of them, they'd been careful with them and they still had nine left (Devon had broken two of the three they'd lost), so these were the mugs they used for their morning coffees, either Ellie or Chuck would make the coffee and bring in two (or more) mugs to the other for their morning chat). As she was sipping her coffee, Ellie got a text from Aunt D (the security system had flagged her entry into Chuck's room) which included the transcript of what Chuck's discussion with Anna, and a request to ask him about the files she'd activated.

By the time she finished reading the transcript, Ellie was in tears too, but she wiped the tears away and cleared her throat loudly, which had them up in seconds. She did note with approval that Chuck kept his arm around Anna when he woke, as pulling away from her then would have been like rubbing salt into the wound after last night. Ellie handed their coffees over and asked about the files that he'd had Aunt D activate.

He smiled to hear that they'd been kicked off "Oh, it was just the first steps to change our cover arrangements. If things go today the way I expect that they will, we're going to be locked into our covers for the duration of the exercise, so those files lodged Jeff, Anna and my resignations direct to Buy More Corporate, back dated so they'll be finalised in a few days, along the purchase of a commercial property to use as a shop front and the establishment of a Los Angeles franchise for Charlemagne Computers Etc, the company that we started up in Palo Alto when I was at Stanford to give me a cover job that explained my income and absences to cover up what I was doing for Aunt D, also back dated far enough that they come up two or three days ago."

"The storyline is that when CCE decided to start a new franchise down here, they contacted me as an ex-employee who'd left on good terms to ask if I'd be interested in working for them again, and whether I knew of anyone else who might be interested, so I talked Anna and Jeff into coming with me. This way, we'll go into this new setup with the three of us working for a new computer service franchise instead of that People of Walmart Rejects Shop, and we can easily expand it to include Casey and Sarah if we have to."

At that, the TV screen lit up with a video conference from Aunt D "You couldn't have just told us that instead of making me wonder what I kicked off Chuck?" She hesitated and then added "Anna, could you put your top back on, please? Having to look at your perky young breasts like that just makes a woman my age feel old and irritable." Anna went bright red and tried to duck down behind Chuck, quickly putting her mug on the bedside table and dropping off the bed to pull her tank top on before she rose back into sight. Aunt D kept a straight face as she said "Thank you Anna" but Ellie had a grin plastered over her face.

Anna settled cross legged on the bed beside Chuck and he smiled at her before answering Aunt D. "If you recall Aunt D, it wasn't exactly easy to send you the files' location, let alone a lengthy explanation." Aunt D looked at him and deadpanned "Oh yes, you had a near naked girl crying in your arms at the time, didn't you?" Anna went bright red again and Chuck frowned at Aunt D, so she responded "I'm sorry Anna, that wasn't directed at you, it was intended for my godson, it seemed a little inappropriate for him to be signalling orders at me with hand signs while he was caring for you. I was also a little miffed that I was expected to set this off without any explanation at all, so I didn't know whether I was starting a nuclear war or setting off something to bring the President down, both of which we all know he's quite capable of doing. I'm glad to see that the actions I initiated were as benign as I was hoping they'd be."

Anna nodded, and then asked "So where will we be working Chuck?"

He pointed off in a direction away from Burbank "Glendale, there's an area on the border of the tech and residential areas that was a bit of a no man's land because of gang activity for a while, but it's just starting to pick up and be redeveloped now that the gangs have been moved out. There's a row of quite interesting old buildings in that area that were going quite cheap and I picked them up under a shell company a couple of years ago. The property that CCE has nominally bought is one of the smallest of those buildings, which is separate from the others. We can get it up to a workable state without much cost, but when this operation takes off, the NSA and CIA will have the scope to do more."

Aunt D looked at him musingly "You have thought this through, haven't you?"

Chuck nodded "I've been planning and working on this ever since the cover bureau stuck us at the Buy More because of my 'delicate state' five years ago. For that matter, I've been wanting to lob a few bombs into the cover bureau for thirteen years."

Sensing a need to change the conversation, Ellie brought up the fact that Chuck would have to make a show of trying to revive his computer. Chuck nodded, saying that he'd take it in, as soon as Jeff started the song and dance that he knew that he'd go through, Patel would have to go bigger, so everyone would know about it.

Glancing at Anna, Ellie also asked whether he had everything planned for when Sammie, no, Sarah, came in? Chuck nodded again, he'd get her to come to the house to pick him up, and that would give Ellie the chance to bring her in here for a private word. He'd also tell her that his sister and her boyfriend would be working at the hospital if she brought it up.

Aunt D dropped off then, and Ellie went to wake up her 'boyfriend' while Chuck and Anna got ready for work, they wouldn't be going in together, but she would go straight to work from there. As Grimes had a habit of turning up to demand a ride to work and had seen her there some mornings, they'd gone with the 'secret girlfriend' story as 'friends with benefits' would have meant that she'd have to be fighting off Grimes and Patel all the time when they tried to get the same arrangement.

As predicted, Jeff had a great time hamming it up, talking about how dead Chuck's computer was and suggesting that the ninja would come back to finish him. Patel tried to sound knowledgeable as decreed that the computer had been 'murdered', and Chuck asked them to put the remains inside while he went to the Large Mart to get some locks for the window.

While in the Large Mart though, Chuck saw a guy who triggered more of those flashes of information like he'd experienced the previous morning, but these were rather more specific. He grabbed his phone and called Aunt D on the private line, telling her about the Serbian bomb maker who was going to blow up General Stanfield at the Pacific Security League Conference tonight. She went to try to get the General's appearance at the conference cancelled, but they wouldn't even consider cancelling anything without proof.

Meanwhile, seeing the bomb maker seemed to have triggered an almost constant stream of images in Chuck's head, which in turn was generating one mother of a headache for him, so he had said head in his hands at the Nerd Herd counter when someone rang the bell right next to his ear. Certain that it was Grimes, after running though a list of undoubtedly satisfying but unfortunately unacceptable options (ram the bell through his forehead, make him swallow it, rip his fingers off, scream at him to 'FUCKOFF!' and the like), he settled for saying "Morgan, not now!" and grabbing his hand to prevent him doing it again, as he was bound to do, but the hand he grabbed most certainly wasn't his.

When he looked up, it was Sammie, or rather Sarah, so he stood up and asked if she was having more phone problems and when she responded with the lame line about not being able to receive calls as she hadn't gotten one from him, he started to wonder whether Ellie and the others could be right?

Aside from Grimes 'helping', it went far easier than he'd expected that it would, as she was quite aggressive about them going out, and she was going to pick him up at 5:00 so he could show her the sights of L.A. before they went to get something to eat.

Casey arrived that afternoon, but they didn't have a chance to talk as Grimes was hanging around boasting about how he got Chuck a date with the smoking hot blonde and asking whether it was cool if he took Anna off his hands now? Chuck didn't even escape him by going home, because he insisted on coming along to tell Ellie about how he got Chuck this date.

Dealing with Grimes or Woodcomb one at a time was as much as Chuck could handle, so Ellie told Grimes that if he held up Chuck getting ready and wasn't long gone before Sarah was due to arrive, she'd get out her magnifying glass and swap his penis for his nose, WITHOUT anaesthetic! He'd seen that look in her eye before (he'd had nearly fourteen years experience of irritating her), so he ran before she hurt him.

That was one problem out of the way, but Ellie insisted on selecting Chuck's clothes so she could talk to him in his room. The issue was Devon, he'd suddenly changed his shifts around so he wasn't working this afternoon, and insisted that he was too tired to do anything but lay on the couch and watch TV. He'd normally be out exercising, so he was up to something.

Chuck was ready and waiting when Sarah arrived, and he hardly had time to warn her that his sister and her boyfriend were home before Ellie descended on her for an excited, bone crushing hug, immediately followed by a hard stare and the announcement that they needed to talk, calling "Chuck, is it OK if we use your room? Our's is a mess, thanks!" over her shoulder as she led Sarah down the hall.

Inside Chuck's room with the door shut and the security mechanisms activated, Ellie smiled at her, saying "Hi Sammie, we've missed you!" Sarah tried to stick to her story that she didn't know what she was talking about, so Ellie sighed and said "Auntie Em?" At that the screen lit up to show Emma, with the baby Molly in her arms she smiled and said "Hello Sammie"

"Mama? You can't be involved in this, it's too dangerous!"

"Oh Honey, I've been involved in this since before you were born, and so was your father! By the way, there's someone else here who wants to say hello to you."

With that, the screen split and Aunt D showed up in uniform on the other half. Sarah recognised her immediately and said "Auntie Di?" Aunt D smiled and nodded, saying "Hello Sammie, we've been looking for you for over twenty years, but we never expected you to walk in here on an assignment!"

When Sarah took in Aunt D's rank and read her name badge, her eyes widened "You're the one in charge of the NSA's secret project!"

Aunt D nodded "Yes Sammie, I run teams for the NSA, and the DIA, and Chuck and Ellie are at the core of the most important ones, where is Chuck by the way?"

Ellie said "I had to call Auntie Em in quicker than I expected, hang on, can you blank your screens just in case while I open the door, please?" the screens go dark and Ellie said "Thanks" before opening the door and calling down the hall "Chuck, can you come here for a minute please?"

Unfortunately, he wasn't alone when he came down the hall, Devon was there and all but insisting that he come in and 'help'. Ellie handled it fine though "No Devon, it's just a bit of big sister talk, but I need Chuck to clarify something for Sarah, go back and watch your show, we'll be out soon enough." With that she pushed him towards the living room and shut the door, Chuck activating the electric controls as soon as she did. The fact that they could hear him saying something and banging on the door told them that they had to do something about him, and Ellie was frowning at the door as she absently said "OK" at the screen.

When the screen lit up, Aunt D was frowning as well "We HAVE to find out who he's working for!" but all attention turned to Sarah when she said "I'd say Graham, it's the only thing that makes any sense."

Aunt D asked "Care to explain that Sammie?"

Sarah shook her head "Look, you're obviously all in the game somehow, so this is a 'Sarah' discussion, OK? I can't risk Graham catching me out on the name, so when we're talking professionally, call me Sarah."

Aunt D nodded "Of course, I'm sorry Sarah, but can you explain your comment about Devon Woodcomb, please?"

Sarah nodded "Well for a start, he and Bryce Larkin were buddies, they grew up together back in Connecticut and I kept getting stories about him over the time I was supposed to be working Larkin by pretending to be his partner. Considering that it was Graham who assigned me to work Larkin (a look of distaste and guilt crossed over her face as she remembered what she did for what she'd believed was a legitimate assignment to get evidence on Larkin), and pulled me off that for a mission in Budapest to leave Larkin free to get into the NSA's.." She stopped and looked at Aunt D "Your facility, it's obvious Larkin was working for him. Initially Graham told me I was here to investigate Woodcomb, so he obviously knew about Larkin's connection to him, and where Woodcomb was. The only way that makes sense is that he's working for Graham as well." She looked at Chuck "He only changed my target to Charlie, sorry, Chuck, his buddy from Stanford, after I got here."

Aunt D nodded again "Thank you Sarah, yes, that makes sense, at first we only knew that the files had been sent to California, it took several hours more to identify that they'd been sent to Chuck. This does present another concern, though, as we never suspected that Larkin was an Agent at Stanford, we just thought that he was some bastard who betrayed his friend and room mate and screwed his girlfriend. If he grew up with Woodcomb, Graham must have altered his identity and cut years off his age to insert him in there, and we looked into his records very carefully, they looked legitimate according to my people. For that matter, we investigated Woodcomb, too, and his records looked totally legitimate, we never found any connection between them."

She looked at Chuck and Ellie "Obviously we didn't do as good a job of hiding you from Graham as we thought if he managed to insert his agents into both your lives, I'm sorry."

Sarah was shocked by the knife that suddenly appeared in Ellie's hand, because she was supposed to be the best, and she hadn't seen where it came from. The speed with which Charlie, Chuck! moved to her to catch Ellie's hand was also a shock, as she'd never seen anyone move that fast. Chuck spoke to Ellie quietly "No El, if Graham's behind this, we have to be careful how we do this. The best way to deal with him (nodding at the living room) at the moment is to have one of your fights and tell him you need some time alone, that shouldn't raise too many alarm bells as it's happened often enough before, and the way he's behaving at the moment is a good enough excuse for the fight."

Ellie nodded and he pulled her into a hug, it was a touching moment but Sarah noted that the knife had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, these two definitely weren't what they appeared to be.

Aunt D nodded, saying "It's apparent that we need to do a much more thorough investigation into the Larkin and Woodcomb families, and everyone else in your lives. We can initiate this in your 'alone time'. By the way Sarah, Anna Wu has been playing Chuck's 'secret girlfriend' to make protective details and some missions easier, but contrary to what you may be told, nothing has ever happened between them, much to Agent Wu's aggravation."

Sarah looked at Chuck and he said "The girl in the Nerd Herder uniform at the Buy More." She nodded at that, as she'd seen her looking daggers at her both times she was in the store.

Aunt D got down to business "Sorry, we've gotten side tracked here, Sarah, the short story is that Chuck, Ellie, Miss Wu and Jeffrey Barnes work for me as off the books agents and analysts. John Casey also works for me, with Chuck and Ellie much of the time, and is quite aware of the situation. As you know, he's now there in L.A. as my man to bring in this civilian (waving at Chuck) for the NSA to determine what happened to the files Larkin sent him. You may as well know now that they're in his head, my idiot godson opened that email from Larkin and had the Intersect loaded into his head, the active code to load the Intersect into a human host must have been in what came from the CIA as we'd cut that out of the NSA version after the terrible results of the earlier human trials. Obviously I'm working on the assumption here that you're on our side and won't do anything to hurt Chuck, god help us all if I'm wrong on that."

The look that Sarah sent her would have been terrifying if they'd been in the same room, but as it was, she was happy to see it "I didn't expect anything else, but it had to be said, he's missed you more than anyone, other than your mother perhaps. Now we'll have to sort out the details later, as Chuck has information from the Intersect that a Serbian bomber is going to blow up General Stanfield, and probably everyone else, at the Pacific Security League Conference tonight, so we need you to go to the hotel where the conference is to stop the bomber, as I can't get anyone to take the bomb threat seriously. We'll have a bomb squad and strike team on the premises and John Casey will meet you there, he'll put on a show for the cameras of trying to take Chuck off you but he's working with you, afterwards, we'll need you and John to come up with an argument to convince Director Graham and myself to keep Chuck there, in the world, so we can use what's in his head, knowing your parents and your reputation, I'm sure that you won't have any trouble adlibbing your way through that?" Sarah shook her head.

Aunt D nodded "Is there anything else we need to discuss?" There was a general shaking of heads "Well then, while we have much to discuss about other matters and we will be doing that, for the moment I believe that we need to address this bomb matter before a lot of people get killed, so best of luck and we'll talk afterwards." With that, she cut her link. Emma lifted Molly's hand to wave, saying "Bye Honey, we'll talk soon, I promise! Bye Ellie, Bye Chuck" when she'd received her "Bye Mama" and "Bye Auntie Em"s, she smiled and cut her link too.

As Sarah stood, Chuck stepped to her and quietly asked "Are you OK?" Sarah nodded, though she didn't FEEL OK, the revelations of the past ten minutes or so had hit her like a ton of bricks. Chuck wrapped his arms around her and it felt so good that she wrapped hers around his neck and clung to him as if her life depended on it. After a few minutes she'd composed herself enough to relax her grip, and he kissed her gently on the forehead, which made her stretch up on tiptoe to quickly kiss his lips before she let him go. This time when he asked "OK?", her nod was much more confident.

At that he remembered to tell her that her phone was bugged by the CIA, and the only place that the bugs were completely suppressed was in his room with the security controls engaged, once they were locked into the assignment, her phone could have an 'accident', and he'd give her a nice new one that she'd have to keep to convince him of how attached she was to him. Sarah smiled at him, yes, he was definitely more than he appeared, he knew how to play the game and beat all the standard plays.

After a hug from Ellie to each of them, they put their game faces on and headed out to the living room, an attempt to breeze by Devon on the way out the door was thwarted by him wrapping Sarah in a hug, and her expression when she felt his hand on her arse would have made him run if he'd seen it. While he missed it, Chuck didn't, so he said "OK Devon, we've got to get going, bye!" taking Sarah's hand and pulling her out the door.

At Sarah's Porsche (the proper Carrera Cabriolet this time), she dug out the note that Devon had slipped into her back pocket while he was groping her arse to read once she was in the driver's seat. Chuck almost matched the look of white hot anger that crossed her face when she handed it to him to read 'When you're finished with the loser, call me so we can catch up. 5557678539 D' He was obviously confident that his buddy Larkin had talked him up to her, and given what Larkin had undoubtedly said about what Sarah would do, he'd be certain that she'd jump at the opportunity. He and Larkin really were two of a kind, certain that no woman could resist their charms.

Sarah's anger made for an interesting drive initially, as she channelled it into her driving, but it didn't take long for Chuck's hand on her thigh to calm her. As they had some time, he directed her up to a quiet lookout that he knew to give her a chance to relax. Along the way, he gave Ellie something to fuel her anger for the fight with the douche, sending her the image of the note.

Up at the lookout, they didn't talk much, she just relaxed back into his arms as they looked out over the view, but when they kissed before they headed back to the car, they both knew that this was what they'd been missing for most of their lives. Their interlude up there successful, as they were relaxed enough to get their heads in the game by the time they reached the restaurant at the hotel where the conference was.

They saw Casey at the bar on the way in, but ignored him as they headed into the restaurant, and were shown to the specific table that Chuck had set their reservation for to give him a view of both the main entrance of the conference room, and the service entrance. Chuck was in communication with Casey, so he could call him in as soon as he IDed the bomber.

Conscious that they were being monitored via Sarah's phone, they kept up the expected banal first date banter, though they were so nervous that they both dropped some incredibly lame lines. They'd been there for a while without Chuck seeing the bomber when Casey called him on the earwig and pointed out that they were getting close to the time that Chuck had seen highlighted in the schedule, so Chuck signalled him to move in.

Casey came in like a bull in a china shop, and Chuck was playing the confused and frightened civilian until he suddenly started pointing at the conference room and saying "Wait, that guy, the one who just went in there, he was a Serbian Bomber, that's a security conference and General Stanfield's in there. He, he's going to blow up the conference!"

Casey grabbed his shoulder and hustled him to the entrance of the conference room, muttering over the earwig 'Don't give up your day job Chuck, that was awful!' just getting 'As long as it gets us in the door!' in reply.

At the door, Casey and Sarah's credentials got them past security, then Casey just said "Find him!" and left Chuck alone to do what he did. It took a minute, but Chuck spotted the bomber pushing a serving trolley and pointed him out. The guy went for a gun or something when he was confronted and was dead on the floor from multiple bullet wounds inside twenty seconds.

That led to their next problem, he'd obviously reached the detonator he was going for when he was shot, because the timer was showing under a minute and a half when they found it, and the arming mechanism wasn't like anything that Chuck could see in the Intersect, or any of them had ever seen in their bomb disposal training. The bomb disposal unit had been called in, but they'd be at least a few minutes yet, and the only one who knew how to disarm it was in the centre of a rapidly expanding red stain on the floor, at that moment, Chuck's phone rang.

When he saw it was Grimes, he was going to ignore it, but thought that Ellie may have used his phone to reach him without giving herself away, so he answered. Unfortunately it WAS Grimes, calling him in the middle of a date with a beautiful woman demanding to hear details of what they were doing? Who would do that? Other than the village idiot, of course. Chuck was in the process of hanging up on him when one thing he said about his computer being down with the 'Demovas' registered and he looked at the Prism Express laptop being used in the arming mechanism, these cheap laptops had been hit harder than most computers by the Demova Virus because of the way they were configured, so he hung up and quickly brought up a WiFi link (thanking unsecured WiFi for probably the first time) opening a browser, accessing the malware site and killing the computer to shut down the arming mechanism with it less than a second to spare.

They were still standing there in a daze when the bomb squad came running in. The bomb technicians pushed their way in, but when they pulled aside the cloth covering the body of the trolley, they stumbled back in fear, because the entire space was filled with explosives. If properly configured, a bomb that size would have been enough to bring the entire building down, and the Serbian had the reputation of being one of the best in the business, so it would have been.

When General Stanfield came down to find out what the hell was going on, Chuck quickly activated a block on the bugs in Sarah's phone (similar to how the controls in his room had done). The General went white when the bomb squad's leader showed him the amount of explosives, and told him to get them out of here! As the trolley was being gingerly wheeled out of the conference room, he turned to them. Sarah noted his look at her, and the fact that he accepted Chuck's nod to say that it was safe to talk in front of her without question "Colonel Smith, what's going on here? Why didn't the General tell us that you had proof of the bomb here?"

Chuck looked around to ensure that no-one else was in earshot "Because we didn't have hard proof General, we heard enough chatter to be concerned about the threat, but we didn't have any hard evidence to convince your people with." He nodded over at the idiot who'd refused to change anything without proof of a threat and then continued "So we came here to try and stop the bomber, which we did."

The General shook his hand "Well thank you Colonel, a lot of people are alive thanks to you, and I'll make sure that that's acknowledged!" Chuck looked around again and lowered his voice "Please don't General, we're in the middle of an operation here and I need to be known as Charles Bartowski, a civilian, who's only here because he's in the custody of John Casey from the NSA and Sarah Walker from the CIA." General Stanfield looked hard at him "I'll go along with this for now Colonel because I know you don't do anything without good reason, but I want to hear the real story on this in the not too distant future!" Chuck nodded "Yes sir, and thank you."

General Stanfield shook Chuck's hand again, saying "Mr Bartowski", then Casey's "Mr Casey", and finally Sarah's "Miss Walker", while he had her hand, he pulled her closer and whispered "If I'm reading the look you're giving Johnny correctly Miss Walker, I hope you realise what a hell of a man you have!" She smiled as she whispered back "I'm coming to realise that General!"

With that, Casey and Sarah hustled Chuck out of the conference room and they all put on their show once Chuck had unblocked Sarah's phone. Less than half an hour later, they'd all been contacted (Chuck and Casey by Aunt D, Sarah by Graham) to advise them that Chuck would be left where he was, with Casey and Sarah assigned as his handlers to protect him. When Sarah went to him at the beach, they were careful not to say anything that would give them away via the bugs, but they held hands and enjoyed their time with each other.

Sarah dropped Chuck off at the apartment before she headed off to try and get a couple of hour's sleep before she and Casey went into the local FBI offices to have a secure teleconference with General Beckman and Director Graham. Unfortunately, Grimes was there, apparently deciding to get the story about what happened on the date face to face as he'd hung up on him, and get a lift to work, of course.


	3. Cover Lives

**Some snippets are distasteful in this, and some won't like the way some characters are portrayed, but I wanted to explain the characters as I was in the mood to flush them this chapter.**

 **I expect the creation of a more Sarah and Chuck friendly working environment will be better received.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and the real world's back there somewhere.**

* * *

When Sarah met Casey outside the FBI building, she waved her phone subtly to remind him of the bugs, he didn't acknowledge, but asked "So, did you tuck your new boy toy in Walker?"

She looked at him coolly and said "The asset was returned safely to his apartment, if that's what you're asking Casey!" He nodded and they proceeded inside. His handoff of an earwig to her as they did so was undetectable.

Ensconced in the meeting room with the secure video conference facility, they connected to Washington and made their report of the previous day to their bosses. Once their bosses had grudgingly confirmed their position that the best use of Chuck's capabilities would be to leave him in place with Casey and Sarah as his handlers, they started on the arrangements for the operation.

Graham was suspicious when the General advised that Chuck, Jeff and Anna were leaving the Burbank Buy More the next day to join a new franchise of the Charlemagne Computers Etc technical services company, which was opening in Glendale once the premises were fitted out. He couldn't understand how Woodcomb could have missed this, but when she said that the NSA had managed to get Agents Casey and Walker inserted into this new franchise as additional staff (under the guise of FBI agents being placed there to monitor gang activity), he saw a chance to get this back under his control.

"We can't do that Diane, the asset will have to stay at the Buy More, we'll put Casey and Walker into there to replace the other two, but Wu's the asset's girlfriend, which would cause problems for Walker acting as his girlfriend, as she is being assigned to do."

General Beckman smirked at him "Apparently your information is out of date, Langston, as Miss Wu is no longer Mr Bartowski's girlfriend, apparently their short lived relationship was finished already, but Mr Bartowski is a man of integrity, so as soon as he made a date with Agent Walker yesterday, he told Miss Wu about it and they agreed that they'd rather stay friends than have nothing. We tapped into the store security cameras and have the footage, if you wish to see it?"

He frowned "I was told she spent the night before last with him, what woman would do that and then agree to be friends when he's with someone else?"

She just said "See for yourself!" and kicked off the video.

"You moved on pretty quick, didn't you Chuck? I thought you were telling me last night that you couldn't handle having a relationship, and you needed to take a break to think about it?"

"You know as well as I do why I called it off Anna, I couldn't handle another relationship like that."

"Alright! I screwed up, I wouldn't have slept with that guy if I hadn't drank so much, but I just went out to have some fun with my girlfriends, at least I was honest with you about it."

"Yeah, I appreciate that, but it's just too much like her, and I can't be with you with that hanging over us."

"So what happens now, do we just throw away five years of friendship because I screwed up?"

"I don't want that, but could you handle being friends if things work out with Sarah like I hope?"

"If it's a choice between having to watch you with her and not having you in my life, yes! You're the best friend I've ever had Chuck, that's what I can't live without, I can always find some hot guy to sleep with, but I can't find anyone else to talk to about my parents and the other shit or hold me when I make a fool of myself over some douche, you're the only one I've ever had who could do that for me, so, we still friends?"

He nodded, saying "Absolutely!" and kissed her on top of the head, but she reached up and grabbed his neck, to drag him down for a more serious kiss, finishing by saying "You know that, as your best friend, I reserve the right to kick Blondie's arse if she breaks your heart, don't you?"

He laughed and said "OK", and that was where the footage finished.

The General continued "As you can see, Miss Wu has accepted that she is Mr Bartowski's friend, not his girlfriend, as well as the prospect that Agent Walker may become his girlfriend, so there is no problem with continuing with the scenario that we have in play. Also, Mr Bartowski will be managing this franchise so we can control the work environment, we won't have to deal with the idiots that they have at the Buy More." (she brought up footage of the antics of the store manager and the head of the sales staff, that Chinese goblin who'd waylaid Chuck the first day, among others) "No, the new Charlemagne Computers franchise is the best option for the Human Intersect Project, the NSA won't consider anything else!"

Graham glowered at her, thinking that Woodcomb better have a good answer for why his intel was so wrong, and he couldn't argue with her logic, so they moved on to accommodation issues. The General managed to aggravate him more by saying that the NSA had also secured the lease of a large apartment in the complex where Mr Bartowski was living, which could serve as the operation's base for the interim, twisting the knife a little by making the offer that Agent Walker could share this apartment if required?

Graham bit harder than she'd wanted him to "No, Diane, that won't be required, Agent Walker will remain at Maison23 for now, but she will be developing the relationship with the asset so that she moves in with him as quickly as possible. Agent Walker will do whatever is necessary to ensure that she has total control of the asset, I expect her to have the situation under control before the month's out."

Aunt D could see Sarah struggling to maintain control, because Graham was plainly ordering her to screw the target, Chuck, into submission and do everything he wanted to make sure she was living with him inside a month, so she tried to deflect his attention. "Have you bothered looking at Mr Bartowski's file, Langston?"

He turned on her "What are you talking about?"

"Well for a start, Mr Bartowski is exceptionally intelligent, and would see through any of the common ploys used on marks, and even more importantly, there was that incident at Stanford, caused by your Agent Larkin, that has made him very suspicious of everyone's motives, he referred to it in his discussion with Miss Wu yesterday, so he most definitely hasn't forgotten it. I am referring, of course, to the fact that he found your Agent Larkin, who was supposed to be his best friend and room mate at the time, in the process of having sex with Jill Roberts, who was supposedly in a committed relationship with Mr Bartowski at the time. Mr Bartowski hasn't been able to trust any woman enough to have a serious relationship since then, especially after he saw the evidence that she'd also been having wild sex parties with Agent Larkin and his friends as well, singly and in groups, at Agent Larkin's instigation. The closest he's came to a relationship since then was apparently with Miss Wu, and as you just heard, she ruined his trust again by getting drunk and sleeping with someone else."

"With Mr Bartowski's history, if Agent Walker started pressing him to sleep with her constantly, she'd lose the trust and affection that she's apparently managed to develop so far with him, forever. If we wish her to develop a strong enough relationship with Mr Bartowski for him to remain under her sway, she will need to take the time to build the necessary trust with him, much like traditional courtship." After a short pause, she added "And there can be no possibility of her ever doing anything of a compromising nature with anyone else, on mission or off, as that would immediately destroy any trust on Mr Bartowski's part if he ever found out. Are you able to commit to that, Agent Walker?"

It took everything Sarah had not to grin at that, she loved Auntie Di so much right now! "Yes, ma'am, I can! I understand that this operation is too important to take any risks like that with."

Graham was pissed off with the way this was falling apart, so he instinctively growled "That isn't your call Walker, you'll do what you're told to on a mission!"

Aunt D had a glint in her eye now "If that's your position, Langston, I'm afraid that I will have to request that the DNI remove the CIA from the Human Intersect Project completely! Agent Walker is quite correct, this project is of paramount importance! Since your Agent Larkin destroyed the Intersect facility, the Intelligence community, no, the nation is seriously exposed. Mr Bartowski is the only available source of the information that we desperately need to fight this war, and therefore we need to maintain his trust and co-operation in order to have access to that information. If the CIA is not prepared to guarantee that what's required to ensure that we can maintain that trust will be done, they cannot be involved in the Intersect Project, and I can assure you that the DNI is committed to ensuring the success of the Human Intersect Project."

"You don't have the authority to remove us General!"

"Perhaps you should get your hearing checked Director, as I told you that it will be the DNI removing you, and he most definitely DOES have the authority!"

"I can have another agent inserted who can be dedicated to the asset, I can't afford to lose my best agent to this operation."

"I'm afraid that wouldn't be acceptable. For some reason Mr Bartowski has formed an attachment to Agent Walker, and I don't believe that he's superficial enough for it to be only for her beauty, removing her and trying to insert someone else would destroy his trust in us. If there's to be a CIA agent in the Human Intersect Project, it will be Agent Walker, otherwise the CIA is out."

"That sounds suspiciously like you're making an ultimatum General!"

"I wouldn't dream of it Director, but I've already tried to impress on you the importance of the Human Intersect Project, if you aren't prepared to accept that, then you won't be involved."

She pressed the intercom for her aide "Lieutenant Peters, can you get me the DNI on the secure link please? I need him to authorise some changes to the Human Intersect Project" saying 'thank you' when she got the reply of "Yes General I'll let you know when I have him'.

"Alright, you'll have Walker on the Intersect Project and we won't assign her to any serious seduction missions locally to interfere with your asset's trust!"

"I don't believe that you understand what I'm telling you at all Director."

At that point, her aide came through to say that she had the DNI on the line, and the two screens split to show him and the others. "Good morning Sir, we're trying to establish the parameters for the Human Intersect Project, but we're having some issues. We have Director Graham, Major Casey, CIA Agent Walker and myself on the line at this end."

When she got 'What seems to be the issue General?' from the DNI, she continued. "The primary issue is our need to maintain the trust and cooperation of Mr Bartowski sir, I believe that you've read his file and are aware of his trust issues stemming from that incident involving CIA Agent Larkin and Agent Larkin's friends with Mr Bartowski's partner at Stanford?"

'Yes, that was a disturbing, not to mention disgusting incident, I think you did the world a favour by putting a bullet in him Major Casey.'

Casey nodded "Yes, Sir".

She continued "We appear to be having trouble convincing Director Graham that we cannot afford to betray Mr Bartowski's trust again. I have pointed out that if Agent Walker were to develop a close relationship with Mr Bartowski as his handler to better manage him, we could not afford to have her in any situations, on mission or off, which would destroy his trust in her, and therefore us. I must note that Agent Walker was prepared to make this commitment, but Director Graham remained adamant that the CIA would assign missions to their agents as they saw fit. When I then pointed out that the CIA could not be involved in the Human Intersect Project under those conditions, he stated that he'd replace her with another agent who would comply with my conditions, to which I had to remind him of the fact that Mr Bartowski has already appeared to form an attachment to Agent Walker would create problems if she were replaced with some other woman. Director Graham's response to this was that Agent Walker would work on the Human Intersect Project and he wouldn't send her on any 'serious' seduction missions locally. In my view, sir, the CIA's position on this would unnecessarily endanger the trust and cooperation that we need from Mr Bartowski, and that the Human Intersect Project should proceed as an NSA only operation, with no female agents' involvement. Mr Bartowski will be unhappy that Agent Walker is removed, as his attachment to her is obvious, but having Agent Walker placed in a position where she would be forced to betray his trust once his attachment has grown further would totally destroy the trust that we must depend on."

She could see that Sarah believed that she'd betrayed her, and tried to signal to her to trust her. It didn't appear to be working, but whatever Casey said to her over the earwig did, and she calmed down a little. Luckily, Graham was so focussed on her at that point that he missed it.

The DNI came back with 'What do you have to say about this Director Graham?'

"It appears that General Beckman is trying to manoeuvre the CIA out of the Human Intersect Project by fabricating scenarios where our standard practices may create issues Sir. I am not at all convinced that what she is saying is probable!"

The DNI asked "Have you read Mr Bartowski's file, Director Graham?'.

"Yes Sir, he was upset because he caught his girlfriend in bed with someone else, but that happens all the time at college."

The DNI said 'I'm sorry to do this to you General, but could you bring up those pictures that were going around the Internet at the time, please?'

Aunt D reluctantly complied, bringing up pictures of Jill Roberts with one, or more often two or three males at a time inside her, as well as images involving fetish rituals and sex devices. Bryce Larkin was prominent in many of these pictures, if not participating, then encouraging his friends in what they were doing to her. When Graham confirmed that he'd seen them, she took them down, and the DNI spoke again.

'Are you telling me that you cannot understand why Mr Bartowski would have issues trusting any woman after seeing these images of the woman that everyone was convinced was totally committed to him, and his supposed best friend, your agent, plastered over the Internet, Director?'

Aunt D could see Sarah bending down, apparently picking something up from the floor, but she knew that she was trying to cover her reaction to those images, Aunt D just hoped that they weren't bringing up memories of anything similar with Larkin from when she was working with him, she'd have to call her when they could do so privately.

Graham was furious, why hadn't he seen these before? "I wasn't aware of this Sir, but that was five years ago Sir, and my information is that he's holding down a job and having relationships, so it can't be effecting him that much."

'Where are you getting your information from Director? Mr Bartowski hasn't had a serious relationship since that incident with Roberts.'

"That does not comply with the CIA's information Sir, the indications are that he's been in a relationship with Anna Wu, from the Buy More, for some time, Sir."

'You should check your sources Director, the information that we have is that while he has been friends with Miss Wu for some time, they'd only started getting more serious when she got drunk on a girls' night out and slept with someone else, she was honest and told him about it, unlike Roberts, but that was the end of the relationship.'

'Director, I can see from your attitude to this that General Beckman is correct, we cannot afford the risk of Agent Walker being ordered to do something on a mission that would endanger Mr Bartowski's trust and co-operation, so I cannot allow the CIA's participation in the Human Intersect Project under these conditions.'

Aunt D glanced at the image of Sarah and Casey "Sir, there may be one way that we can still allow the Human Intersect Project to be a joint operation, so the CIA can benefit from the resources of the Intersect."

'What are you proposing General?'

"If we can guarantee that no orders are given to Agent Walker which would compromise Mr Bartowski's trust in her, I see no need to remove her from the Human Intersect Project. If we had an iron-clad written mandate that Agent Walker will be not be reassigned from the Human Intersect Project, she will be restricted to missions as part of the Intersect team only, and that I have total control of all orders to all members of the Intersect team, including her, we could ensure that no orders were given to her that would result in a breach of Mr Bartowski's trust in her and the team."

The DNI mused on this for about a minute and then said 'I can accept that as a workable solution, Director, will the CIA commit to complete compliance with this if we write this mandate, or are we to remove the CIA from the Human Intersect Project? Before you say anything, know that these are your only two options.'

Graham had to get could control himself to answer "Yes Sir, the CIA will commit to complete compliance with these terms" civilly.

The DNI nodded 'Stay there Director, the paperwork will be written up for your's, the General's and my signature, and once this has been signed off, we can proceed with the Intersect Project.' With that, he dropped off the link.

Aunt D picked up where they were at the start of the diversion "So will Agent Walker be remaining at Maison23, Langston?"

"Yes, General, we may revisit this later, but for now she will."

She nodded "We've been given leave by the owners of Charlemagne Computers to add what facilities the 'FBI' deems necessary to the premises in the refitting, so perhaps we should discuss that, unless there are any other items?"

Sarah said "Actually, ma'am, there is one thing which could become an issue of the nature of what you were discussing earlier, Ellie's, that is Chuck's sister's, boyfriend, Devon Woodcomb. When Chuck and I were leaving his apartment last night, Woodcomb was touching me rather inappropriately when he hugged me, and Chuck wasn't happy when he observed that, I also found that he'd slipped a note into the back pocket of my jeans as he was groping my arse." At this point, she held up the note to the camera "To ensure that Chuck didn't believe that I was encouraging him, I showed him the note. If Woodcomb continues this way, it could cause problems, so I believe that it would be best for Chuck and I to take the matter up with his sister, and get Woodcomb out of the environment."

Graham spoke up, because though Woodcomb's intel wasn't as good as he'd been given to expect, he wasn't prepared to throw away the investment and lose that close access to the family "That's hardly necessary Walker, if you don't respond to his attentions, he'll give up and concentrate on his girlfriend."

It was apparent that Sarah was about to shoot herself in the foot, so Casey stepped in. "Actually, there was no-one at the Bartowski residence when I arrived in Los Angeles yesterday, so I managed to plant some cameras in the living area, we may have footage of this." With that, he pulled out a tablet, and in a few minutes was holding the tablet up to the camera to show the footage of when they were arriving, and leaving, this footage clearly showed that she didn't say anything to him other than 'Hi' and 'Bye Devon', didn't show him any interest, and was obviously enraged when he'd grabbed her arse.

Aunt D looked both angry and suspicious "Yes, we obviously need to get rid of him, I believe that the best course would probably be for you and Mr Bartowski to discuss this note and how it was delivered with his sister."

Sarah nodded "Yes, ma'am."

"And we need to investigate him, we've been looking into everyone in that household quite aggressively for the past two days to build our knowledge base, and what we've collected on Woodcomb shows his behaviour yesterday to be very suspicious. He went to considerable trouble to change his shift so he was home when you came, and he's normally out training whenever he has any free time, so the way he sat there looked like he was waiting for you to arrive. You're certain that you've never met or talked to this man before Agent Walker?"

Sarah shook her head "No ma'am."

Aunt D nodded "We'll be launching a full investigation into him and his family then, I'm not comfortable with someone that suspicious being that close to Mr Bartowski."

Graham tried to argue that it was a tad paranoid, and a waste of money, to launch a full investigation into the man and his family just because he'd make a play at a beautiful woman, as he couldn't afford for anyone to make too serious an investigation into Woodcomb, in case any of the changes made to his records were uncovered.

Aunt D looked at him "The NSA will fund the investigation Director, I fail to see why this would concern you."

At that point, the door was opened and the DNI ushered in. Hearing her last words, he asked what she was talking about, and she quickly summarised what had been discussed about Devon Woodcomb and the fact that the Director was arguing against investigating Devon Woodcomb and the Woodcomb family while the three of them were signing the mandates that would effectively make Sarah safe from the machinations of Graham and the rest of the CIA.

'Devon Woodcomb is a doctor? Hell yes, investigate him! There's no way he could ever get through medical school, I'm not sure that he made it through grade school without help!'

He stopped suddenly as if he'd remembered something, then said 'Yes General, you should definitely investigate Devon Woodcomb' and left abruptly.

As he left, Aunt D had to fight to keep the look of triumph off her face, not only had he pushed through the mandate that protected Sammie, he'd effectively ordered her to launch the investigation into Woodcomb. Thank you Uncle Ron!

As they were winding up the meeting, Aunt D got a text from Uncle Ron.

'Also look into Bruce Dawkins, AKA Bryce Larkin, he's the same age as Devon Woodcomb, they grew up together, to use the term loosely, in Connecticut, they were infamous for their exploits, they both had a string of statutory rape, rape, drunk driving causing injury and the like charges when they were teenagers. Their families bought their way out of most of the charges but they had a lot of fathers hunting them because they liked to pick up young girls and take them to out of the way places where they couldn't get away to make them party with their buddies, they disappeared in the nineties with a lot of people looking for them. This has been bothering me since I saw the incident in Bartowski's file, because it was similar to the reports of them back then but I couldn't place it until now. Obviously someone went to a lot of trouble to create a new identity for Dawkins that was five years younger, and also cover up Woodcomb's criminal record.'

* * *

She controlled her expression until Graham left, and then sent the text on to Casey, Ellie and Chuck, on one hand this was the key they needed, but it also meant that Ellie could be in danger.

As soon as Chuck got the text, he brought up Ellie's location on his phone, grabbed Anna and left. He just wanted her car, but when he told her why she insisted on coming. With his cover life, Chuck couldn't have a performance car, but Anna wasn't under quite the same constraints, and it wasn't unusual for Asians to have cars that looked like hers, though few of them could perform like her's. Anna hung on for grim death as Chuck drove to the apartment, telling herself over and over that he knew what he was doing, because the car seemed to be either going sideways at terrifying speeds or in the air for half of the trip. As they were walking into the apartment complex, he threw her her keys, while she threw him his pistol, which he tucked into his waistband in the small of his back.

Inside, Chuck confirmed that Ellie was OK and then asked where he was. Ellie nodded down the hall, saying "Bedroom." He nodded, kissed her on the cheek and headed down the hall. As he burst into the bedroom, Woodcomb just about pissed himself, as he was in the process of frantically stuffing his things into his bags. Woodcomb tried to play it through "Chuck, what the hell are you doing, coming into our room like that?"

The look Chuck was giving him was one he'd never seen before, and really didn't want to see again, and he knew he was in trouble when he said "You seem to be in a hurry Devon, give me the phone!" Devon tried to draw himself up, but when Chuck took a step forward, he did piss himself a little and hastily handed over his phone. It was his regular phone, which pissed Chuck off, but he used it to dial the number from the note he'd stuffed into Sarah's pocket (Sarah wasn't the only one with a near perfect memory) and said "Hand it over!" when it rang.

Devon tried to hold out, but this Chuck was terrifying him, and he meekly handed it over. Sure enough, he'd got a text about the same time Aunt D texted him 'You've been made, get out!' Chuck put the phone into his pocket without a word, then drove him into the floor with a broken cheekbone, unconscious for the duration, with one punch.

* * *

Casey showed Sarah the text when he received it and they left immediately. As they were headed for the lifts, though, Sarah put a hand on his arm and held up her CIA phone. Casey nodded and took it off her without a word, heading for the stairs instead of the lifts. As they headed into the stairwell he said "Stop complaining Walker, you know that the damned lifts aren't working properly and this will be a lot faster. Look out, your phone!" and dropped it down the space between the stairs.

They watched it shatter and spray all over the bottom of the stairwell and Sarah grinned at him. "Smooth, Casey!" He shrugged "I may not be able to fix them like Chuck does, but I can break them as good as anyone!" They hurried down and picked up the major pieces, making sure that they had the SIM and the SD card, and that they left the battery behind. When she got back to Chuck's apartment, she left the remains of the phone in the glovebox of the Porsche, just in case they hadn't managed to kill it, when she ran in to make sure that Ellie was OK. She was with Ellie and Anna when Chuck came out of Ellie's room.

When Casey turned up ten minutes later, they had Woodcomb secured and Chuck was in the process of carting all of Woodcomb's things out to his car once he'd scanned them for bugs and tracers. When Casey walked in, Chuck hooked his thumb at Ellie's bedroom. Casey just asked "Dungeon?" and Chuck nodded, so Casey went through, picked up Woodcomb and carried him out to throw him in the boot of his Crown Vic, driving off straight away. As soon as Chuck had carted everything out to Woodcomb's car, he came back and suggested that Ellie ride with Sarah as she knew the way, and told Anna to follow them, then he took off.

When they got to the Porsche, Sarah stopped Ellie and said that her smashed CIA phone was in the glovebox. Ellie nodded and pulled her phone out, activating the bug and tracer scanner, but before she got in she quickly went over the car, scanning it. Only when it had all come up clear, including the remains of the phone, did they relax and talk in between Ellie's directions. Ellie pointed out what was going to be the new CCE offices as they passed it, and pulled out a remote to open the garage door on a building just up the road, looking back to make sure Anna had followed them in before she closed the door again.

Chuck had grabbed a trolley and emptied those things from Woodcomb's car that he'd take when he was running onto it, before leading the way to the freight elevator. Downstairs, he parked the trolley out of the way and had Ellie show Sarah and Anna around the Dungeon while he organised a false trail for Woodcomb's disappearance. Sarah's eyes lit up at the armoury and urban combat range, and she was surprised by the scope of the medical facilities, while Anna drooled over the computer facilities.

Their time there was all too short, as Chuck and Anna had to get back to the Buy More (second last day though, yay!) while Ellie and Sarah had to deposit Woodcomb's car at the airport far enough ahead of the flight that Chuck had manipulated the system to show that Woodcomb was aboard to fit into the story. Before they left though, Ellie remembered Sarah's phone and reminded Chuck that they had to replace it, so he grabbed one of their phones before they went upstairs, leaving Casey to start extracting information from Woodcomb. Chuck got the remains of Sarah's phone off her and kissed her and Ellie goodbye before climbing into Anna's car (letting her drive this time) and heading out.

* * *

Back at the Buy More, Harry Tang started yammering at them that they couldn't leave like that, he'd have them fired!

That made Chuck snort "Didn't Big Mike tell you Harry?"

"Tell me what?"

"Tomorrow's our last day! So do your worst you pathetic dweeb!"

"What? No, you can't leave!"

Chuck gave him an evil grin "And yet, we are, one more day and Jeff, Anna and I are out of here for good!"

Tang looked at him "No, no, you're trying to play a prank on me, you'll pay for this Bartowski!" Screaming "BIG MIKE!" as he ran off to his office.

Chuck was transferring the data from Sarah's CIA phone to her new phone when Big Mike came huffing up "What's this about you leaving Bartowski? I never agreed to that!"

"You must have signed it off Big Mike, otherwise how would it have gotten into Corporate's systems?"

"I never signed any resignation forms!"

"Oh, no it's all on-line nowadays, it's part of that new HR system that we put in three months back, time sheets, overtime, leave, training and resignations, I showed you, remember? You signed off to say everyone was trained on the system? Anyway, we lodged our resignations four weeks ago to make sure you had plenty of time to get our replacements in, when you didn't I just presumed that you were reducing the size of the Nerd Herd."

"Why would I do that? It makes more than the rest of the store!"

"Well I thought it was strange, but it isn't my place to tell you how to run the store Big Mike."

"No, no you're not going! I'm calling Corporate to cancel this now!"

With that he turned and waddled off to his office as fast as he could.

Sarah was watching this with a grin, but that grin turned to a frown when Anna leapt onto Chuck to kiss him exuberantly. She decided to let it go as Chuck just gave her a quick hug and set her back on her feet, but if she tried to make a habit of this, they'd be having words! Anna ran off to tell Jeff about the scene and Sarah approached.

She cleared her throat as she came up to the counter, and when he looked up, his smile at the sight of her made her go weak at the knees, literally, she had to grab the counter to hold herself up! After clearing her throat again, she regained her voice and asked "Is my phone ready?" Chuck nodded happily as he clicked the cover in place "Just finishing it up… Now!" and handed it to her, talking her through some of the extra functions, like the bug and tracer scanners and blockers. She smiled happily at him and asked what she owed him, to which he grinned and and said "How about a kiss?" That made her frown again "Not until you wipe your mouth, I'm not in the mood for second hand Anna!"

His face dropped "It wasn't, I didn't!" She regretted saying that the second it came out, so she came around the counter to embrace him, saying she was sorry and kissing him as Big Mike came bustling up again. "I don't know how you did it Bartowski, but Corporate says that I can't stop you going, but you need to get all this work backlog finished before you go! Blondie, it's staff only back there, get out of there!" Sarah stiffened, but Chuck calmed her with another kiss before turning to Big Mike "No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"No, I'm not taking any more of your shit and I'm not cleaning up any more of your messes, we're leaving now!" With that he pulled out his phone and sent a text to Jeff and Anna to say 'Get out here, we're leaving!' and threw his ID badge, all his keys and tie on the counter. By the time he was done, they'd arrived and were doing the same.

Grimes turned up, saying "It's about time buddy!" and went to follow suit, but Chuck stopped him "What are you doing?"

"I'm going with you!"

"No, you aren't, your place is here, goodbye Morgan."

"But Chuck, you can't leave without me, I'm your het..."

Chuck stopped him there "Don't you dare finish that line! I don't know what's worse, that it's creepy, infantile or stupid, all I know is that I don't EVER want to hear it again! And for that matter, I don't want to see you or this place again either, you're all things that I'll quite happily leave in my rear view mirror."

He was pissed off enough to twist the knife at that point, so he turned to Anna "By the way Anna, when Sarah asked me out on the date, the first thing he wanted to know was if it was cool if he took you off my hands, just thought you might like to know."

"WHAT? You little creep!" Her boot lifted Grimes off the floor, and he passed out from the pain as soon as he collapsed on the floor.

Big Mike only managed to get "Now.." out before Anna turned on him. The look on her face made him run away as quickly as he could, trying to cover his delicate bits.

She started crying then, and Sarah found that she didn't mind that Chuck took her in his arms to comfort her, or that he kept his arm around her as they walked out of the store, as long as he was holding her hand as well.

* * *

Outside, while they were sorting out how they were getting back to Chuck's apartment, they were suddenly surrounded by police cars, with an arsenal of pistols, shotguns and assault rifles pointed at them. Sarah had grabbed her CIA credentials and dropped her gun in the Porsche when she saw the cop cars approaching, and she held her credentials up as she started walking towards them. Chuck tried to stop her but she smiled at him, saying that she'd be fine.

When she got there, she asked the older officer in charge, Officer Jardine, what had been called in, and when she was told armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon, she got pissed. "What's happening here, Officer Jardine, is that my boyfriend and his friends Anna and Jeff over there were due to finish working for Buy More tomorrow, but the Manager, the one who called in the hoax call, decided to tell Chuck, my boyfriend, that they had to finish the store's entire backlog of work before they left. Chuck told him 'no, they weren't', in fact they were leaving immediately, because the three of them have done just about all the work as long as they've been here. While they were all dropping their keys, badges and everything on the counter, I can show you where it is, I expect that it'll all still be there, as we've only been out here for about five minutes talking, one of the mental defectives who works there came up and decided that he was going with them. He pissed Chuck off when he wouldn't take no for an answer, so Chuck told Anna what he'd said about her the first time I asked Chuck out. You see, Chuck and Anna are good friends, and to keep the perverts in there off her, they've been pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend, so when Chuck agreed to go on a date with me, the little creep inside decided that he'd take Anna off his hands, and when Chuck told Anna about that she kicked him in the family jewels so hard, I don't know whether he's regained consciousness yet. So that's the truth about what happened in there. Now I'm not working here Officer Jardine, and if anything official goes through the system it will cause trouble for me, so do you think it might be possible to keep the fact that I'm CIA out of the reports, please?"

Officer Jardine was looking pretty pissed himself by that stage, as they'd pulled cars off patrols around the district to attend the scene here, he nodded quickly, saying that that should be fine, then sent all the other cars back on patrol before he entered the store with her. As Sarah had said, the badges, keys etc were still on the Nerd Herd counter, with Grimes was on the floor in front of it, groaning in pain. His face was grim as he confirmed that the IDs were for the three outside and asked where the manager's office was. Sarah pointed it out and he politely asked if she would come with him. She agreed with a smile, suggesting along the way that they say she was a lawyer, that made him flash a grim smile, as he knew that that'd make this tool piss himself.

In Big Mike's office, he went to town, telling him about the penalties for calling in hoax calls to 911, and personally assuring him that if anything happened because the police were called away for his hoax he'd make sure that he paid for it. He ended up telling him he was just lucky that this nice lawyer had managed to diffuse the situation before anyone got shot, otherwise he would have been in BIG trouble, as it was, the bill would be going to Buy More for the hoax call.

They could tell by the smell that he had indeed pissed himself when he heard 'lawyer' (being too stupid to understand that suing him for everything he had wasn't worth the effort ), so they were laughing when they exited the store. When they got outside, Officer Jardine noticed something he'd missed in the tension earlier, the Porsche and Evo that the others were standing beside looked a awful lot like the descriptions of the two cars that had been reported travelling across the city at incredible speeds two hours before. After thinking about it though, he shrugged, they hadn't hit anything or caused any accidents, and for all that she said she wasn't working, this was probably a CIA operation, so he just shook her hand, thanked her for her help in resolving the situation and left.

By now, Anna had settled down enough to drive the Evo, so Jeff went with her and Chuck went with Sarah. Back at the apartment, Ellie had been having a massive cleaning spree, throwing out anything else that related to Devon and tidying up her room after he'd torn it apart, trying to get his things together in time to escape.

All of them but Jeff were still off balance due to the events of the day, so they decided to head out, get something to eat and give everyone a chance to check out the new CCE premises and the Dungeon. They called Casey to see what type of food he wanted and called ahead to order the food, then piled back into the Evo and the Porsche and headed back to Glendale.

Chuck and Sarah went straight to the building, as there was more room in the back of the Evo to carry the food. Sarah waved her hand at the remote that Chuck used to open the door and turn on the lights, asking "Will I be getting one of those?" he smiled at her, "Of course!"

When they were inside, she pointed at the vehicles dimly visible further in "What are they?

Chuck shrugged "My old work van and bike, and some cars and bikes we use for missions sometimes."

Something in the way he said that made Sarah say "I'd like to see them."

Chuck sighed and hit the buttons to bring up the lights at that end, and Sarah saw that she'd read him right. There was indeed a van there, but the rubber and the way it sat on its suspension said that it was a considerably higher performance prospect than any ordinary van, and there was a Harley that to the untrained eye looked like an ordinary home modified bike, but Sarah's eye wasn't untrained, she took in the modifications to the suspension, brakes, drive, and especially the engine, and knew that this was a very high performance bike, perhaps not quite as much as the rather modified Ducati 1098 or other high end sports bikes behind it, but more than most performance bikes.

And then there were the cars, Aston Martins, Jaguars, Ferraris, Maseratis, a GT 40, a McLaren, a heavily modified wide body Corvette, a stretch Town Car, a heavily modified and stretched '60s Lincoln Continental Convertible that had been modernised, and an SUV that looked like it was built for off road racing. There were some ordinary machines as well, but there were some serious machines here! This was irresistible to someone with Sarah's love of high performance machines.

She finished looking over the collection and stepped right up to Chuck, whispering huskily "I want to try these!" He smiled and nodded, and she stretched up on tip toe to kiss him, just as the garage door started opening and he killed the lights at that end. As it was, the attention of the people in the car was caught by them kissing rather than the shadowy vehicles in the background, but Anna wasn't as enamoured with performance machines as Chuck and Sarah were, and Ellie and Jeff had already seen them.

When they went downstairs, Chuck looked at Casey and he just shook his head, Sarah and Ellie caught that, and Sarah looked at Ellie to see if she was OK with that, Ellie smiled at her and nodded. At that point, a call came in from Aunt D to ask for a private video conference with Sarah. Ellie looked at Chuck, who pointed her to one of the smaller meeting rooms down the end, so she took Sarah down there and initiated the link with Aunt D, closing the door behind her as she left.

Aunt D looked at Sarah, trying to pick how she was handling things, but Sarah's Agent's mask was impenetrable, so she had to ask. "There are a few things that I wanted to discuss with you Sarah, the first is, are you happy with the working arrangements for the team? I'm sorry that I couldn't discuss this with you beforehand, but I couldn't see any way to do so without the CIA's knowledge."

"Yes Auntie Di, you had me worried for a while, but Casey told me what you were doing, and the end result was everything that I could ask for, thank you!"

"I'm glad that it worked out properly, mind you, the fact that the DNI is connected to my family probably helped", she added with a grin.

Sarah matched her grin "I dare say it did!"

Aunt D hesitated then "Sarah, I saw your reaction to the pictures of Jill Roberts with Larkin and the others, I have to ask, did anything like that ever happen to you when you were working with him?"

Sarah shook her head "No Auntie Di, he tried to talk and pressure me into the fetish shit at times, but he got the point soon enough when he was on the business end of my knives or guns and stopped bringing it up, I think he was bright enough to know what would have happened to him if he tried to bring any other guys into it. He did try to slip me things a few times, but I made it quite clear that if he tried again I'd kill him, and if I found that he'd managed to do it to me, I'd kill him slowly. The worst I had to put up with was the back door once when he caught me out, but I made it quite clear what would happen to him if he ever tried that again, he carried the scar from what I did to him for that until Casey killed him."

She stopped and then looked back at Aunt D "I wasn't Larkin's partner Auntie Di, and I was never in a relationship with him! I was supposed to be working him to collect information on him to take him down, that was one of my main functions for Graham, investigate agents who were questionable, but now it's obvious that Graham put me in there for his Golden Boy to play with. The sex was only a tiny fraction of what Larkin wanted and demanded, but after those pictures I saw, I just don't know how to tell Chuck about it."

Aunt D's heart went out to her "Just tell him the truth Sammie, I'm sure what he feels for you…., I need to show you something, actually, no, I'll show you the whole thing, watch and listen, we can talk about it afterwards." With that, she played the videos from Chuck's room from that first night after she appeared, starting with the one where Chuck called her.

A few times, Sammie got her to stop the video and asked questions, and there were more than a few times where she blushed, something she hadn't done since she was a girl. She first started crying when she saw Chuck's reaction when he thought she'd had someone else's baby, but that was only the first of many things that caused that. When Anna took her top off, she bristled, but she got caught up in what Chuck was saying, and soon ignored her naked breasts and the fact that Chuck was holding her, as this was just comforting a friend, as he'd done in the store this afternoon.

At the end, she wiped her eyes and asked what he was signalling with the hand signals, Aunt D explained he was ordering her (giving a wry smile) to activate the files that put the new cover arrangements in place. That of course got a "What do you mean?" from Sarah, and she told her "Their on-going cover arrangements had Chuck, Jeff and Anna still working at the Buy More, but Chuck had buried these files in the system for an eventuality like this, they inserted resignations into the Buy More systems for the three of them, processed the sale of the property that was to be used for the CCE business and created an L.A. franchise for the CCE cover business that he created for himself in Palo Alto. Back when he started the business, he also created other phantom CCE franchises around the country, so the creation of one more wouldn't attract too much attention. He scoped the franchise so that you, Casey and others if necessary could be added to the business. All of these actions were inserted using dates timed to ensure that the execution had just occurred, or was just about to occur."

Sarah stared at the screen "How could he set all that up in files to automatically kick everything off, adjust the dates and everything else?"

Aunt D shook her head "I have no idea Sarah, I don't know anyone who can work out how he does things with computer systems, most of us just put it down as magic and let it go at that."

Sarah nodded, switching back to Sammie "What was Chuck talking about with that wild period?"

Aunt D tried to deflect "I really think it would be better for you to discuss this with Chuck…."

"Auntie Di Please!"

She sighed "For nearly four years, it was like he said, he slept with nearly every girl who asked him, and then something happened…." She looked at Sammie for over a minute "He has twin daughters Sammie, one of the girls he slept with when he first started this when he was twelve got pregnant, her mother took her away to a farm so she wouldn't be vilified for being a pre-teen mother, and they only came back to town when the girls started asking about their father. Their mother is a friend to Chuck, no more, and she knows that's all she'll ever be to him, but he's a wonderful father to his girls. He cut back on the wild partying a lot after that, and generally tried to put the weekends aside for them, when he was at Stanford, he was coming back from Palo Alto every weekend to see them, that may have been what gave Larkin his window of opportunity with Roberts over the six or seven months they were together, but when we investigated her, we found that Larkin and his buddies were far from the only ones she was with, it seemed that whenever Chuck turned his back she was in someone else's bed."

"Anyway, after Roberts, he didn't have anything to do with other women, he stopped looking for someone to fill the hole you left, the girls and Ellie have a place in his life, but that's as a father and brother, as you saw in those videos, no-one has ever replaced you."

"By the way, Anna, you may think from the videos from the first night that she's still after Chuck, but that video I showed Graham?" Sarah nodded "She went off script at the end, she was honestly telling Chuck, and you, that she wants, or more to the point, needs, to keep his friendship, and that she accepts that you're the one he cares about. You'll have to draw your own conclusions, but I can assure you that she meant every word she said there."

She looked at Sammie then "How are you handling this?"

"I, I don't know."

"Would you like me to sit in when you tell Chuck about the things you need to tell him?"

"No, thank you Auntie Di, but I need to tell him myself."

Aunt D nodded, saying that she'd leave her to it then, but Sarah stopped her "Wait, there's something else I need to ask! General Stanfield obviously knows Chuck, but he called him Colonel Smith, and Johnny, why?"

"OK, this is complicated, but he, and Ellie, have been working for the government, for me, for nearly fourteen years now. We've created a number of identities for them since their parents disappeared, Mary disappeared when Chuck was nine, and Stefan disappeared when he was twelve. When Stefan disappeared, Bry, your mother, Roan and I relocated them and gave them new names, Eleanora Lena Bartol became Eleanor Faye Bartowski, and Charles Filip Bartol became Charles Irving Bartowski, don't ask me how the cover bureau came up with those names, because we don't know."

"That's when they started working for me, I tried to bury their identities under a maze of identities spread across the services, Ellie is Rebecca Cohen in the USAF, Eleanore LaBelle in the USN, Susan Jones in the USA and Mary Devlin in the USMC, Chuck is Philipe Beaumont in the USAF, Charles Carmichael in the USN, John Smith in the USA and Jacob Bowman in the USMC. All their military identities are listed as being ten to fifteen years older than they actually are, and they all point to one another, so if someone investigates deep enough, they'll get an indication that it's a cover for one of the others."

"They started out as analysts fourteen years ago, but as I believe you've noted, they've both got quite a bit of special forces training and combat as well as operational experience, I don't know whether they still talk about Mary, their mother, in the CIA, but in our day she was a legend, her code name was Frost."

Sarah jumped at that, and Aunt D smiled "So they do still talk about her, well Chuck and Ellie inherited her abilities, and perhaps even more, and they've been doing combat missions and operations for eleven years now. Anyway, their identities were created as Lieutenants or Captains fourteen years ago, and they've been getting promotions and medals on the basis of their performance on their missions and operations since then, Chuck's highest rank at the moment is Colonel, Ellie's highest rank is Commodore. The reason that General Stanfield knows Chuck is that Chuck's worked with him on more than a few operations."

"Thanks Auntie Di, now I think I have to find Chuck and explain to him what I've been doing for the last twenty years, and especially the last eight, and hope he still wants me after that, wait, do you have a picture of his daughters? I'd like to see them at least once in case I don't get another chance."

"Have some faith in him, he understands what we have to do to serve our country! Anyway, here are the girls, that's Lottie, Charlotte, on the left and Charlie, Charlene, on the right."

"They're beautiful! Oh well, wish me luck Auntie Di!"

"You won't need it, but I wish you all the luck in the world sweetheart!"

Sarah went out and quietly asked Chuck if they could talk. They went back into the meeting room that she'd been talking to Auntie Di in, and as half an hour became one, then two, then three, Ellie, and Casey, became steadily more nervous.

After three hours, Casey grabbed Ellie and told her that she was behind on her range time. She knew that he was just trying to get her mind off what was going on back there, but she appreciated it, so she went along with it, and blasting away at the targets for a while did relax her a little, but the second Anna sent a text to say that they'd come out, both she and Casey left the weapons on the bench and ran back to see what the outcome was.

The second Ellie saw the bright smiles on their faces, she descended on them, and almost choked both of them with her hugs, for the moment anyway, everything was right in their world.


	4. The Empire Strikes Back

**Thanks JR, and everyone else I responded to.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this ain't the real world.**

* * *

Back in his office, Graham grabbed the whiskey bottle and a tumbler from the cupboard and settled at his desk to consider the debacle that had just occurred. How had Beckman blindsided him like that? She'd never shown herself to be this strong a player before…

There was something suspicious about the way the DNI had backed her all the way, too, he'd have to look into that, but something else needed to be addressed first, Woodcomb. He'd told him what would happen if he ever screwed him over the way that Dawkins had, and it was time to make good on that threat, so he issued the orders to have Woodcomb apprehended and brought to him immediately, as a top priority.

What hurt the most was losing Walker to the damned Intersect Project, once he'd found the right motivation, her mother's safety, she'd proven herself to be worth more than any ten ordinary agents, how the hell had he let Beckman bait him into the position where he'd lost so much? She now had control of the Intersect Project and the best agent he'd ever had, hell, the best he'd ever seen, she made Frost look like an amateur.

He started analysing what had happened, realising that he'd started losing control of the situation when Beckman threw him off balance with the bombshell about Bartowski and the others leaving the Buy More. This had obviously been in play for some time with the new premises and everything, and he'd been so tied up with why Woodcomb hadn't known about this that he'd missed asking the all important question, how had Beckman?

It had just gone downhill from there, he'd thought he could regain control with Woodcomb's inside information about Bartowski and Wu, but she'd trumped him AGAIN with the proof that that was already history. He'd heard that she had some incredible techs on her team, but having her prove it by pulling the rug out from under him like that? Fuck! What was the point of having a man inside the house if he missed all the important information?

He had to concede that he'd slipped up when he'd missed the reference Beckman had made to sex parties and slapped down Walker when she'd grabbed at the chance that Beckman offered to get out of some of the things he required her to do, he'd played into Beckman's hands there, and he couldn't blame anyone but himself for that. And he had to admit that Beckman had played that well, making use of the way he was off-balance to manoeuvre him into the position where she could bring the DNI in. He found it extremely suspicious that even the DNI appeared to more about this than he had, when he'd had people sitting on the Bartowskis for eight years now.

Woodcomb wasn't to blame for the next thing Beckman had blindsided him with, that was on Larkin and Roberts, and the team who'd been running oversight back then, they HAD to all know about those pictures of that slut being all over the Internet, why hadn't he ever been told? He may not be able to take this out on Larkin, but Roberts and the others, they'd pay! A small part of himself pointed out that he was partly to blame as he'd given Larkin the go-ahead to develop Roberts as a female version of himself and Woodcomb, but he'd expected them to have the sense to stop their games while she was working Bartowski, Roberts would pay for that.

The next fuck up was on Woodcomb though, he'd assured him that Wu was Bartowski's girlfriend and that she'd been spending the night with him for years, and that error was what they'd used to put the final nail in his coffin, so he'd make him pay for that when they brought him in. Once again, he had to concede that it had been a masterful stroke on Beckman's part, that mandate that she'd engineered to get control of both the project and Walker, but he'd bring the bitch down yet.

And then that final fuck-up of Woodcomb's, he couldn't resist making a blatant play for Walker right in front of Bartowski? Even going so far as to slip a fucking note in her pocket to call him to catch up? Fuck! Where did he find these idiots? Everything else that Woodcomb had done paled in comparison to that, and he'd die slow for that! Having Beckman's Pit-Bull provide video evidence of what had happened had just rubbed salt in the wound.

Having to try and talk them out of investigating Woodcomb, for fear that the ones who'd manipulated his records to cover up his past may have fucked up as badly as everyone else working for him, had just made the situation worse and the fact that the DNI obviously knew about Woodcomb, because his description of him had been spot on, was a worry. He just hoped that the idiot had gotten away before Beckman's people caught him, because if they got their hands on him, he'd talk, he had the backbone of a jellyfish.

* * *

He thought back to when he'd picked up Dawkins and Woodcomb, nearly nine years ago. Their families had finally washed their hands of them and they were on the run from the law, as well as an angry pack of fathers and kinfolk who were determined to make them pay for what they'd done to their little girls. He could have turned them over to the law, or the girls' families, but he'd decided that he could make use of them, and the threat of turning them over to the law, or worse, the pack, was enough to ensure their cooperation. The thing was, most women did find the pair irresistible, and the CIA didn't have much to offer as far as appeal to younger women went back then, so he'd groomed them off the books as a team to acquire female targets.

It was around this time that he'd located the Bartol children, one of the CIA recruiters who was in his pocket had noted the daughter's resemblance to Frost when he was hunting for candidates at her university and reported it to him. He'd put a team on her and they'd quickly identified that she lived with her brother, the son. He'd been disappointed that their parents weren't with them, as he was desperate to reacquire the father. He wasn't so sure about Frost though, as without the leverage to control her, she'd be like a nuclear bomb with an unstable arming mechanism, one wrong move and it would be a disaster of epic proportions.

Even though the parents weren't with them, their children were the best chance to find them, so he decided to insert a team to monitor them, and Dawkins and Woodcomb were perfect for the job. Dawkins looked younger than his age, so they'd created a new identity for him as Bryce Larkin, five years younger than Bruce Dawkins, and spent the months leading up to him starting at Stanford tutoring him to the point where he'd be able to at least put on a believable show. Once he was there, all his assignments were done for him and exam results were inserted to ensure that he made the grade, his job was purely to shadow Bartowski, as he was known now, and hopefully catch the father if he contacted him.

He kicked himself for letting that idiot Woodcomb keep his own name, but the argument at the time that the Woodcomb name would make things easier in medical circles had seemed to make sense, so they'd scrubbed any references to his criminal record from all official records and leant on the news services to lose any records on the matter that they may have back on the east coast. Most of the ones tasked with tutoring him to get him up to the level where he'd be believable in medical school baulked at the idea, as he was an idiot, but with enough pressure, and people with him to coach him through everything, he got through, and as with Larkin, his assignments and exams were handled for him. Graham didn't hold out much hope for anyone he worked on, but he was prepared to write that off as collateral damage and have the records manipulated to shift the blame onto someone else, so it was quite a surprise when he actually turned out to have good hands, and as long as someone was with him to tell him what to do, he wasn't too bad in the operating theatre.

When Larkin located the female equivalent of himself in Roberts, it seemed to be the perfect opportunity. Roberts was actually intelligent and attractive, and the fact that she'd screw anything, anywhere, any time could be useful, so he'd given Larkin the go-ahead to develop her to engage Bartowski. He should have made it clear that she was to ONLY screw Bartowski while she was on the engagement though, if she'd stuck to that, this wouldn't have become the cluster fuck that it did. Never mind, she'd pay for her part in what happened here, he'd make sure of that!

* * *

Walker was the big issue here, he'd invested far too much in her to lose her this way, and there was only one thing that could force her cooperation, so he started diverting more resources into the operation to locate Emma Blake, the Fox. Contrary to what he'd told Walker though, he wouldn't be throwing her mother to the dogs when he got his hands on her, she was much too valuable for that! The Fox was as good at analysis and planning as her daughter was as an agent, he'd never seen anything like her, and they'd been trying to reacquire her ever since she disappeared after her husband left with their daughter.

Joe Blake, now there was another one he'd like to have killed slowly and painfully, he'd screwed up so many plans and operations when he took their daughter and left. As soon as it was clear that he wasn't bringing their daughter back, his wife had disappeared, and without their top analyst, a lot of the CIA's key operations had been crippled. As little value as a bargaining chip and the outstanding kill order on him for leaving notwithstanding, however, Agent Joe Blake could still possibly of use, so he was kept alive in prison, though on days when Graham was particularly irked he'd arrange to have him raped or beaten for the trouble he'd caused, speaking of which…

After the 'incident at Stanford', as Beckman liked to call it, he'd been quite tempted to burn both Larkin and Roberts, but with the team there handling Larkin, he'd been too visible to do that quietly, so Graham had his records formalised and made him an agent on the books. He was crap with anything technical, reasonably good at fighting his way out of trouble (which was often necessary due to the frequency that he got himself in trouble), but as good as they got at seduction, all in all he was a reasonably successful agent, and he knew that Graham would have him destroyed if he crossed him again, so he'd been motivated to do his best.

Given that 'the incident' had been more Larkin's fault than Robert's, she was given a stay of execution too. She wasn't known as anything other than 'the slut', though, so he kept her off the books like Woodcomb, and used her where he saw fit.

It was Larkin's seduction skills that made Graham decide to try teaming him up with Walker after the CAT Squad fell apart, thinking that it may make her more malleable if he could work his charm on her, it was soon evident that that wasn't going to work, but by then their track record was showing that they were actually more successful together than any of the other agents that Walker had been partnered with, so except where Walker was sent off on her more serious solo missions, he'd left them teamed up until that operation where Larkin got himself killed.

* * *

When Sarah and Chuck came out of the meeting room and everybody had confirmed that they were OK, they sat down to discuss where they were to go from here. First on the agenda was to find out what Casey had gotten from Woodcomb.

While it was no surprise when Casey confirmed that Woodcomb and Larkin had been working for Graham, it WAS a surprise to hear that Jill Roberts worked for him as well, and that Larkin had developed her to handle Chuck and keep him under control, none of them had seen that coming! Ellie smiled to herself when she saw how Sammie was getting furious about that, and the way that Chuck calmed her down by gently kissing her hand.

Again, while it was no great surprise, it was a relief to hear that Woodcomb had never seen or suspected anything about their activities, he'd just viewed Ellie as the daughter of his target who he got to screw every which way every night and most days. Casey at least had the grace to look guilty as he apologised to her for putting it that way, saying that he was just repeating Woodcomb's words, Ellie nodded at that and told him that she wasn't offended, as that was pretty much way she'd been treating him. Everyone laughed at that, except Chuck, who looked horrified.

Ellie stopped laughing when she saw that and pointed her finger at him. "Oh no you don't! Just because you've been a born again virgin since you caught that slut with him doesn't change the fact we both know that I'll never get close to one percent of the partners you've had!"

He nodded at that and said "Yeah, you're right, sorry El", contritely.

Sammie was looking bemused as she glanced from one to the other, and it was Ellie's turn to be contrite "I'm so sorry Sammie! I didn't mean to say that in front of you, you see..."

At that, Sammie held up her hand "It's alright Ellie, I know about that period, and the girls, I just hadn't grasped the scope of it until you said that."

Ellie looked confused at Chuck, and Sammie shook her head "No, Chuck didn't tell me directly, Auntie Di showed me the videos of the discussions that first night after I arrived, trying to help me understand."

"But…" Ellie's eyes darted in Anna's direction and Sammie realised that Anna didn't know "I asked Auntie Di about the wild period and we talked."

Ellie nodded at that and Sammie leaned in to whisper in Chuck's ear "They're beautiful!" Chuck nodded with a smile and turned his head to kiss her on the cheek, but she turned as well to meet his lips with a sweet, soft kiss.

Chuck gave her another quick kiss, and then turned to Casey, saying "Sorry Casey, he gave his views on Ellie and….?"

Casey smirked "And then he talked about her pathetic loser of a brother who couldn't manage to interest his girlfriend enough to come over more than once every week or two and couldn't hold down more than a minimum wage retail job, even though he somehow managed to get a degree from Stanford."

Ellie looked at Sammie and held up two fingers "Two, actually, Ph D and Masters, and that's not counting his other three degrees he got elsewhere."

Sammie looked at Chuck "When did you have the time, with all your other activities?"

He shrugged "I don't sleep a lot."

She frowned "That may be a problem, because if I don't get my sleep I can be, testy."

He grinned at her, and when she realised what she'd said and looked up to see Ellie grinning at her as well, she went bright red.

Chuck leaned in to kiss her on the cheek, whispering "I can work while you sleep."

She reached up to grab his face and look him in the eye "Just remember, if you wake me up, you'll be sorry!" He nodded with a smile and she kissed him again, turning to challenge Ellie to say something, but her grin just got bigger.

* * *

Chuck looked at Casey,and Casey continued "I did get one important piece of information out of him, that email was meant for Woodcomb, not Chuck, but Chuck's email address was the only one he could send it to, and he was sure that he'd go straight to bed after his birthday party because he was such a lightweight..." He looked at Chuck, "Woodcomb's words, not mine, anyway Woodcomb was supposed to get the files off the computer the next morning after Chuck went to work, but Larkin had set up the email to wipe out all evidence of the files, and probably Chuck, if Chuck did happen to open it."

Casey shook his head and grimaced then "That was pretty much all I got out of him, I was planning on transferring him into NSA custody so we could use him to testify, but I broke him, sorry. With all his going on about extreme sports and being a man, I thought he could've taken a little rough handling fine, but he couldn't. He wouldn't have lasted a day in SEAL training with you."

Sarah looked at Chuck with raised eyebrows "You did SEAL training?"

Chuck nodded "Did you finish?"

Casey snorted "Finish? He took out just about all of the records, I couldn't keep up with him!"

Chuck grinned "El will always be the first girl to complete it!"

"Well yeah, that's one you won't take off her."

Sarah looked from one to the other, they were laughing, but she knew that they were serious, Chuck, Ellie and Casey had all gone through SEAL training! "When was this Chuck?"

He looked at Ellie "Eleven years ago?" Ellie nodded "Yes."

Sarah looked at Casey and he nodded, totally serious.

* * *

At that point, Anna called Chuck over to the computer, sounding angry, his searches on Devon Woodcomb, Bruce Dawkins and Bryce Larkin were starting to come in, and Graham had cause to be worried, as there were quite enough fragments left out there to piece together their records. If anyone had any issue with Woodcomb's death before, after reading the reports of the sort of things that happened to the young girls (sometimes down to 14 or 15) that he and Dawkins had picked up and taken out to their 'parties', the only issue now was that the bastard had died too easily.

Casey was swearing at himself for not being more careful with Woodcomb, now they'd lost everything they could use to go after Graham. Chuck murmured something about 'Not exactly Casey' as he was coding additional searches. He, Jeff and Anna were saying things to each other that made no sense to the others in the room, and eventually Ellie shouted "CHUCK!"

He turned to look at her and she said "Would you care to translate for the humans in the room?"

He took in the expressions from angry (Casey) through impatient (Ellie) to confused (Sarah), and said "Sorry."

Chuck waved to the screens "Casey, we don't have nothing, we have information on when and where things were created, from there we can determine by whom, and that will lead us to who they were created for, but what I was talking about before is that we have another player now, and as far as I can see they're still alive, so I set up searches to try and locate them. We only have that name because you extracted it from Woodcomb, Jill Roberts."

Casey started at that, as he'd put her out of his mind after he told the others, but yes, she was in the middle of this, and as far as they knew she was still alive.

Chuck went on to say that even though Larkin and Woodcomb were dead, tracing their records back would still lead to the people who'd had those records created.

Ellie waved at the screens "How long will this take Chuck?"

He scanned the screens "Probably two, three hours, why?"

"Why don't we go downstairs for a drink?"

Jeff's eyes lit up "Yeah, down to Nora's!"

Ellie frowned at him "We're not calling it that!"

Casey snorted at that, but Ellie didn't turn on him, she turned on Chuck "What did you do?"

Chuck shrugged "It needed a name, and I happen to like it."

"I thought we agreed on Dulcinea's?"

"No, you pushed for that because you didn't want the bar named after you, but Nora's fits a speakeasy better than Dulcinea's, so I got the signs made up."

With that, he took Sammie by the hand and led her downstairs where, sure enough, the brass plate on the door proclaimed 'Nora's Speakeasy' Sammie looked over her shoulder and said with a smile "Sorry Ellie, but he's right."

As he led them into the bar, Sammie and Anna were amazed, it looked just like a genuine prohibition speakeasy, and when Anna said as much Chuck laughed "Well it should, because it was!"

While Jeff went behind the bar to start making the drinks, Chuck explained that these buildings had belonged to a crime family originally in the prohibition, and they'd built the speakeasy on the bottom level, with tunnels in from a number of houses and buildings around.

Sammie accepted her drink and looked around "I love it, but how is it named after you Ellie?"

"You know my original name was Eleanora?" Sammie nodded "Well the normal shortening of my name was 'Nora', and that was what I was called until I was four, but when this one (nodding at Chuck) started to talk, all he would say was 'El' or 'Ellie', so eventually we gave up fighting him and changed to that."

Sammie smiled, that was so how these two were with each other.

She looked at Chuck "So what happened to the tunnels?"

"They're still there, most end up in commercial buildings now, and we've hidden and secured the entrances, one goes down towards the river and finishes in a maintenance facility, one still finishes in a house."

Ellie grinned at Chuck "Go on, show her!"

Chuck smiled and held his hand out to Sammie, she put her drink down and hopped off the barstool, looking intrigued as she took his hand. He led her over to one of the doors on the wall of the main room, activating a discreet keypad and biometric scanner to unlock it. When he left the door open behind them, Anna looked at Ellie, who said "He'll let us know when to come over Anna, but he has to get some things sorted out first." Anna nodded, looking confused and a little miffed.

At the end of the short tunnel, Chuck unlocked another door with similar controls and led Sammie up the stairs in front of them. When they were back up to the ground floor, they were in an old Creole townhouse that was across the road from the buildings. Sammie looked around with a smile "This is lovely, presumably you own it, too?"

Chuck nodded "Yeah, we bought it at the same time, as I'd discovered the plans for the basement levels and old tunnels in some files that I dug up, the people I bought it off didn't know anything about the tunnels or history and were selling it off for redevelopment, but we renovated it, adding quite a few security features."

"So, are you going to live here?"

"It was always something that I wanted to do when I was out from under the restrictions of my cover life, it would be nice here, with the right person. For now, the girls live here with their mother and grandmother."

Sammie asked excitedly "Are they here? I'd love to meet them!"

He smiled "Let's see" and took her hand to led her into the house.

* * *

They were greeted by an older woman, who looked from Chuck, to Sammie, and back, and looked delighted "Is this Sammie? You've found her?"

Chuck nodded with a smile as Sammie looked at him in shock. "Have you told everyone about me?"

The woman answered for him "Not everyone, no, but he told Tiffany when he was explaining to her why he couldn't give her what she wanted. Hello Sammie, I'm Monica."

Sammie shook her hand, saying "Hello Monica" quietly, as she was still a little shocked.

Chuck asked "Are the girls around Monica?"

She waved towards the street "They shouldn't be too long, Tiffany's gone to pick them up from ballet. Would you like a coffee, or maybe a drink?" She added the last with a grin at Sammie.

Sammie looked hopeful, but said "A coffee would be nice, thank you" Monica nodded "How do you have it?" "White with one, thanks."

She turned to Chuck as Monica went off to make the coffee "Any more surprises Chuck?"

"Noooo, you know the girls are beautiful, I suppose I should warn you that Charlie takes after her father a little, she's the nerdy twin."

When Monica brought the coffees back, they heard the garage door opening, and she said "See, I told you they wouldn't be long!"

The girls came out of the garage, chattering, but as soon as they saw Chuck they broke into a run. After greeting their father with hugs and kisses, they turned on his companion, Lottie's look was challenging, while Charlie's was speculative, yeah, these were Chuck's girls alright!

Sammie smiled, saying "Hi, I'm Samantha." It was Charlie who answered, as Lottie was still sizing up this woman who was here with her father. "Hello, I'm Charlene, and this is my sister Charlotte, we were named after Daddy, obviously" Sammie grinned at that "Obviously!" and Charlie grinned back at her, ice broken with one twin at least.

Behind them, Tiffany was staring at Sammie, thinking that after all these years, Chuck had found her. She could see Lottie still trying to stare Sammie down though, so she snapped "Lottie, behave!"

Sammie stood and crossed to Tiffany with a smile "Hi, you must be Tiffany?" Tiffany smiled at her "Hi, yes, and I can see why he's held out for you now." That got the girls' attention, and they were looking from Sammie to Chuck, they'd known that there was something special about this woman, because he'd never brought anyone else here, but that comment said that there was more to it than that.

Chuck grabbed his phone and texted Ellie to bring the others over. About ten minutes later they came out of the room where the stairs came up and the girls ran over to greet their Aunt much like they had Chuck, 'Uncle Jeff' and 'Uncle John' were greeted with hugs too while Anna stood and stared at them, as it was obvious who's daughters they were.

When she felt a hand on her shoulder, she looked up and Chuck said "Anna, these are my daughters, Charlotte and Charlene, Lottie and Charlie, girls, this is Anna." The girls both said 'Hello' shyly this time, as this woman wasn't the quandary in their father's life that Sammie was. Anna automatically said 'Hello' as she tried to process the fact she'd been close to Chuck for over five years now, she'd slept in his bed hundreds of times, but she was only now finding out that he had two teenage daughters?

Ellie saw her struggling with this, and came over to lead her aside and explain the situation to her, and also the fact that Casey and Jeff knew the girls because they'd been there when Monica, their grandmother, brought them and their mother back to town from the farm where they were born and spent their first few years, so they'd been part of the 'family' from the start. She also gently pointed out that Tiffany had had to accept the fact that she'd never be more than a friend to Chuck, too, no matter how how much he loved their daughters, because he couldn't offer more than that to any other woman.

* * *

They were reminded of the fact that they had to get started on looking at getting the new CCE office set up, and Casey had to get his apartment set up before Graham started asking questions when Sarah got a call from Graham demanding to know why she'd been out of communication. He grudgingly accepted her explanation that her phone had slipped out of her purse and been destroyed when it fell down the stairwell in the FBI building, because it matched what he'd heard as the last thing recorded before the phone was destroyed.

When Graham told her to get to the CIA station to be issued with a new phone, she struggled to keep her elation out of her voice when she said that she couldn't do that, because Bartowski had gone to great effort to give her an unreleased high end phone to replace the one that was destroyed. He growled that the CIA would issue her with the same phone, but she was to carry a CIA phone. At that she told him that she didn't believe that that was possible, as Bartowski had told her that there were only two of these phones in existence, he had the other one and they were linked by some sort of private communications channel. Given that they'd been told that they had to keep Bartowski happy, getting rid of the phone that he'd gone to such effort to give her would be dangerous, as he may take that as rejection. Graham growled at that, ordering her to bring the phone to the CIA station so that their techs could examine it and hung up.

As soon as he was gone, Sarah pulled Chuck aside and worriedly told him about Graham's orders, but he reassured her that that wouldn't be a problem, the phone was a sealed unit, the only access into the phone was the SIM slot, and they'd made sure that there was no room to put anything else in there with the SIM card.

That addressed her fears about that, but what Chuck said next first confused her, then worried her. "How would you feel if Auntie Em and Molly were living here?" At the look she was giving him, he continued "Graham isn't an idiot, and he'll know that he needs to up the ante to try and get control over you again. If you watched our discussions from that first night, you know that Auntie Em has worked out how Graham was making you work for him, so the obvious thing for him to do now is to go after her. As I said, when we renovated the house here, we added a lot of security features, it's a lot more secure than the apartment is, and if there's any attempt to break in, well the panic rooms here are more secure than the ones they use for the President. There's plenty of room for them here, and Monica, Tiffany and the girls love Auntie Em, so they'd love to have her and Molly here, I guess what I'm saying is that the only question is, are you OK with Auntie Em being here and seeing what we do?" She stared at him "Are you kidding? OF COURSE! Knowing that she, they, are being protected from him would be such a relief!"

With that, Chuck quickly had a word to Monica and Tiffany, getting the expected response, 'YES!' and he went aside again with Sammie to call Auntie Em, she heard them out, and then just said "Yes, of course, I'd love that." Deciding that there was no time like the present, Chuck kept her on the line as he called Ellie over and asked if she could head out to Emma's with the CCE van and pick up her and Molly and their things (as she was officially off for the day after she'd had a fight with Devon and he'd left).

Ellie agreed, of course, and Emma started packing what they'd need for the immediate future, Aunt D would get the rest of the house packed up and all their special equipment removed, organise the sale of the house, car etc and ship the rest of Emma's things to them. Emma could pick what car she wanted from the collection across the road, and that would cut all connections between her and the life she'd been living before.

So that was where they were, Ellie went to collect Emma and Molly and bring them back while the rest of them went to the CCE building to scope out what they were going to do with the place. As well as setting up the CCE office, the other half of the building had to be updated as well to show the same image. Luckily, the building already had a basement, so Chuck scoped out the best way to inconspicuously reallocate half the basement on the CCE side to the new operations bunker and incorporate access points from the basement into the bunker that the 'civilian employees' weren't likely to find, and sketched out and specified the layout and facilities for the bunker, along with the rest of the changes for the business. Sarah was watching him doing all of this, more than a little bemused when Casey came over to her.

"How does he know how to do all of this?"

Casey shrugged "He's been doing it for fourteen years, who do you think specified everything for the Quixote House?" He hooked his thumb over his shoulder and added "The building where the Dungeon is" when she looked at him. "The only part of Quixote House downstairs that wasn't totally changed was Nora's, and even there he's added high end security systems. It's what he does Walker."

She was still trying to get her head around this, but she nodded, as he obviously knew what he was doing. While she was talking to Casey though, she got a text from Graham asking why she hadn't taken that phone to the techs at the local station yet, so Chuck took her back to Quixote House, setting up an access remote with biometric controls for her (and getting one out for Anna while they were at it), then went back to the CCE building after she'd left. Casey had sent Chuck's designs and requirements off to Aunt D, and the NSA contractors were due within half an hour, so they sent Jeff and Anna off so that the contractors wouldn't see the 'civilians'.

They had a job to do anyway, they had to move into their apartment near the new office. Their cover jobs and lives had put them in the position where their only believable living arrangements were sharing apartments with others, something they'd hated. More to the point, if they stayed where they were, the idiots from the Buy More, primarily Grimes and Patel, would be coming around, trying to crack onto Anna or be buddies with Jeff, so Chuck had tracked down and rented a reasonably nice three bedroom apartment just around the corner for them to share. Now, when they weren't supposed to to be seen at the office, was the perfect time for them to move into it. They went back to Quixote House to grab a truck to move their things, and by the time their room mates got home, they were gone, leaving a month's rent to cover for their hasty departures.

Back at the office, Chuck was upstairs with the contractors, organising for the facilities for the businesses to be installed to his specifications and for the openings in the side walls to be enlarged so garage doors could be fitted to allow access for work trucks, vans or other vehicles, also arranging for two way mirrored glass (armoured glass, but he supposedly didn't know that) to be installed to replace the existing façade around the building. Meanwhile, Casey was downstairs with the specialists, giving the requirements for the operations centre and how the access points were to be hidden.

* * *

Chuck left Casey at the office premises to organise things while he went back to Quixote house, checking on the searches while he waited for Ellie to get back with Auntie Em and Mollie. Some of the search results led to him restructuring the searches to improve the results, but he was seeing that Larkin and Woodcomb had actually been worse before they ran away from what was waiting for them on the east coast, as they seemed to have kept to willing participants on the west coast, no doubt through fear of what Graham would do to them if they ruined his operations, and they already had some concrete links to the CIA, which should ultimately lead to Graham. He also found the Jill Roberts had starred in more than a few hardcore porn videos as a teenager, though her acting as his committed partner had been rather better than what he saw in those videos. There weren't any leads yet as to where she was now, but given her history, he added porn searches to the criteria, as there was a reasonable chance that they may be able to locate her via the porn industry.

He didn't realise how long he'd been working on these searches, so he was surprised by Sarah's return, he went up to see how she went with the CIA techs, but from her angry state it hadn't gone well. When she saw him, her first words were "Fucking idiots!" once she'd calmed down, she said "I ended up having to make them hold up their IDs for a picture, and tell them in words of one syllable or less that if this major operation fell apart because the key person was angry that the device he'd supplied to me was interfered with, which would be quite fucking obvious if they broke it open to plant the tracers that they were determined to plant, it wasn't going to be MY arse on the line, I'd be giving proof of who did it over my objections!"

"I called Graham and told him that his techs were trying to break open a sealed unit to add CIA equipment, and that would ruin our operation, pointing out that he knew how technical you were, and he asked them what they thought they were doing. I think they sealed their fates when they argued 'But sir, you told us we had to get those covert tracking and recording devices into her phone or else!' as I wasn't supposed to know about them, obviously!"

"The special agent in charge turned up with four or five agents and dragged the techs away, and Graham told me to get back to my assignment, then hung up, I think he may have needed a new phone after that by the sound of the way he slammed it down."

She looked around "Is Mama here yet?"

"No, come downstairs and we'll see where they are."

As they exited the lift and Sarah saw what was up on the screens (porn on the ones showing Jill's results), she asked "Chuck, is this what you get into when I'm not here?"

"What?" Then he saw what she was looking at "NO! Those were the results on the searches for Jill, so I've been modifying the searches to try and locate her via the porn industry, as there's a good chance she'll go back to that. That's all!"

She grinned at him "Do you know how cute you are when you blush?"

He glared at her for that, so she sidled up to him with a smile to kiss him, but seeing what was on the screens over his shoulder said "Actually, could we turn those screens off, please? It's rather off-putting!" He looked over his shoulder and nodded, and inside fifteen seconds half the screens were blanked.

He brought up Ellie's location, and confirmed that they were about half an hour out, so he pointed out that she probably should go down to the CCE building and throw her weight around as the lead CIA agent in the Project, as Graham would expect that. She nodded, and asked him to walk her out, so he took her hand and led her to the lift.

As the doors were closing, Sarah waved at the screens "Does that sort of thing seriously not bother you?"

Chuck sighed "It just doesn't register, between the things we look at when we're doing investigations, and what I got up to in my wild period, it's not that shocking, disgusting at times to be sure, but not shocking…. Do you want to know what I was looking at on those screens?" Sarah nodded hesitantly "I was trying to identify their location, to narrow down the search."

She shook her head with a smile at that, and left him with a hug and a kiss to head down to CCE building. When she got there, she had to cover up her surprise at how much they'd gotten done in the first couple of hours, as the holes for the garage doors were already there, much of the yard behind the CCE office was gone as they excavated for the operational bunker, and the two way armoured glass facade was already in place around the building.

They tried to stop her from entering the building, so Sarah switched to the Enforcer as she presented her credentials, intimidating the men into backing down and scattering before her. Once inside, she stalked up to Casey, demanding to know what he thought he was doing, proceeding like this without her? Casey didn't back down, telling her that the operation couldn't wait for her while she did her women's business, but he brought up the plans and specifications, subtly indicating which areas had been left vague for this eventuality, so she made her demands for changes in those areas and stalked out. By the end of the day, the stories were already circulating about the way this CIA skirt wandered in from getting her nails done or something and went off at Casey, the NSA lead agent who'd been there organising everything, demanding that a pile of changes be made before she waltzed out again. As planned, those stories got back to Graham, so in their first video briefing at Casey's the next morning, he was looking pleased with himself, convinced that the fact that his Enforcer was behaving in her usual manner meant she was still under his control.

* * *

When Chuck texted her that Ellie and Emma had arrived as she was heading back to Quixote House, it was all she could do not to break into a run, but she forced herself to keep the same angry stride until she could duck out of sight. Inside, the hug that she caught her mother up in was more like one of Ellie's bone breaking specials than anything that would be expected of Sarah Walker, but she was just so excited. Yes, she'd seen her mother just a few days before, but she'd had nothing to look forward to then, she was leaving the baby with her, and that meant that there were even more pressing reasons to not see her, as she now had to protect both of them from Graham and the world she was part of. Now though, there were here, safe, hidden from Graham and his minions, and for the first time in over twenty years she'd be able to see her when she wanted!

As they were getting into the elevator, Sammie commented to Ellie that she hoped that Chuck had remembered to blank the screens, as those porn images were disturbing. When she said that she couldn't understand how he could be so blasé about them, Ellie told her gently "Sweetie, he was putting porn stars to shame before he was a teenager, we were hearing stories of him satisfying multiple girls at once, weekend long orgies with dozens of girls and the like, and he was like that for nearly four years. To tell you the truth, we've been surprised that the girls are his only children that we know of." Sammie looked at her in shock when she heard that, and she was even more shocked when her mother nodded to confirm it, what else was she going to find out about Chuck?

Sammie helped Chuck get her mother and Molly moved into the house across the road. Now that the ice was broken and they'd found out that this woman was Auntie Em's daughter, the girls were a lot more relaxed and friendly with Sammie, but they were thrilled and excited that Auntie Em and the baby would be living with them. Tiffany and Monica were shocked to find that Sammie was Emma's daughter, as Chuck had never mentioned that fact, but knowing what a wonderful woman Emma was, they thought that it made sense.

Once he'd confirmed that the work on the building was going as Chuck had planned, Casey left the contractors to continue the remodelling and went back to set up his apartment. After dark, Chuck slipped over and finished setting up and optimising all the technical systems for him, as though Casey was far better than most would believe at this after working with Chuck for nearly fourteen years, Chuck was the master. If asked, he'd just say he got techs in to do that.

Casey's last job for the day was to go back to Quixote House to get Woodcomb's body and dispose of it in the early hours of the morning, using one of the cars they kept stashed near the apartments.


	5. First Mission

**NB: Sev, this is day 4, so no complainin' about how long it takes them to get there! ;)**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this ain't real.**

* * *

In the morning, Sarah had to come over to Casey's for their first Intersect team briefing with the General and Graham. As he'd had more work to do, Casey led off, explaining that he'd occupied the apartment and had all the equipment operational. The next comment from Casey got a reaction from Graham, but he didn't say anything.

"It appears that Woodcomb won't be a problem for us now, when I was moving into the apartment, I saw the sister outside and introduced myself, she appeared to be upset, so I asked if anything was wrong, trying to appear to be neighbourly. Apparently she saw that incident that Agent Walker reported yesterday and they had a fight when she confronted him about how she'd seen him taking liberties with her brother's girlfriend, so he'd packed all his things and left her. She went out for a drive in the country soon after that, because she didn't want to be in the apartment and all her friends were working."

"I took that opportunity to try and set up surveillance equipment in the apartment, but for some reason there are issues with getting surveillance signals out of much of the Bartowski apartment. You can sometimes get feeds from the living areas OK, mainly when the front door's open, but the bedrooms at the other end are, in the techs' words, a black hole. I used that test equipment that our techs supplied to investigate as much as we could in the time available, and they said that the different materials used in the construction, especially at the bedroom end, appeared to be blocking all the signals. In addition to this, the soundproofing down the bedroom end is more effective than I've seen in a private home before. This means that we'll have to rely on the coverage from outside, and maybe the living area when we can get a signal, except when Agent Walker is on hand in the apartment. At least we have one advantage there in the fact that the sister views Agent Walker as Bartowski's girlfriend, but it appears that we need to work on communications issues, because she didn't warn me that she was bringing Bartowski home after lunch, and it was only luck that he didn't catch me in their apartment."

Graham didn't say anything to this either, but he was thinking that it did explain why none of the bugs that he'd had Woodcomb try to place had worked, so he'd eventually told him to remove them all before the Bartowskis noticed them. It also explained why Woodcomb kept saying that it was impossible to hear what they were discussing when they were talking in the bedrooms. Maybe Woodcomb wasn't quite as incompetent as he'd thought, but he was still going to make him pay for his screw ups.

Casey finished by saying that once he had everything set up at the apartment, he'd gone to Glendale with Bartowski and Walker to determine the requirements for the new office, for the business as well as the Intersect Project, and get the building set up. He allowed himself to sound impressed as he said that Bartowski had actually had some rather good ideas for the business aspects of the refit, and went on to say that the building had a basement, so he'd sent the plans and pictures through to their designers and they'd come up with a design to block off and hide half of the existing basement to extend the operations bunker, with some hidden access points. The NSA contractors were brought in and they were currently working on the remodelling.

When he handed off to Sarah she reported that she'd gone to see Chuck to get a phone to replace the one that fell out of her purse and was smashed as they were leaving the FBI building. It turned out that Chuck had a pair of very high end experimental phones that hadn't been released and probably wouldn't ever be, due to the cost of producing them, he'd been involved in the project to develop them and apparently the others gave him the only two devices built when it was decided that it wasn't commercially viable. Anyway, he'd set the two phones up for him and her as a linked pair, as they had some special features like a private communications channel between them and strong encryption capabilities. She held up the phone and Graham could see that it wasn't like any other phone he'd ever seen.

"While I was there and he was transferring the data from the remains of my CIA phone to the new phone, one of the ones who thought he ran the store came up and started berating Chuck about something and Chuck told him to get lost. The guy tried to tell him that he'd have him fired and Chuck laughed at him, pointed out that he and the other two's last day was tomorrow, so he could do his worst, and asked hadn't the boss told him about that? The guy ran off to the manager, who came out to ask what he was talking about, and Chuck pointed out that they'd put their resignations into the system four weeks ago and he must have signed them off as corporate had processed them. The manager went off, saying that he was calling corporate to stop this, but came back just as Chuck finished setting up my phone to say that Corporate told him he couldn't stop them going, but they had to clear the store's backlog of jobs first."

"Chuck just told him something along the lines of 'No we aren't, because we're leaving now!' and texted the others that they were leaving, so they all threw their keys, IDs and everything else relating to the store on the counter and walked out. I brought Chuck back here and then we went out to Glendale with Casey, I don't know where the others went to. I had to go out for a while to get something done (glancing at Graham), and when I came back Casey already had the NSA contractors in, working on the building, so I went over the plans and had the necessary changes made for the things that weren't acceptable. I have nothing anything else to report sir, ma'am."

The General looked at her musingly for a couple of minutes before she spoke "Thank you Agent Walker, Major Casey, events appear to have changed the situation a little, but ultimately I believe that these changes are in our favour. Having Woodcomb gone is a very good thing in my opinion, and I think I'll take your suggestion and stop the investigation into him Director, now that he's no longer an issue that money can go towards paying for what Major Casey's required for the operations bunker, perhaps I should have specified that you run your requirements past me before we were committed to them Major."

"Sorry ma'am, but I was working on the understanding that this is a top priority project and asset, so I wanted us to be equipped to handle whatever may come at us."

"You are correct in your understanding Major, but I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do to justify how much we've spent on this. Be that as it may, we're well on the way to having the proper facilities available for the project. I am also heartened to see that both Mr Bartowski and his sister appear to have accepted Agent Walker as his partner, that will make things easier for us. The problems with getting the surveillance signals out of their apartment is a concern, you will have to increase your external coverage and defences to compensate for that Major (Casey nodded), but overall I am please with the way this is going so far. Do you have anything to add Director?"

"Only that, given how much we have tied up in this project, we need to start seeing some results from it!"

She nodded "Yes, you're correct in that, perhaps this will be a good test case, we've picked up chatter about a trail of suspicious deaths that's leading to Los Angeles, and foreign intelligence agencies appear to be following it. I have sent the files through to you Major, get Mr Bartowski to go over them and see what he can come up with."

* * *

Casey said 'Yes ma'am', and with that they wound up the meeting. Sarah went to use the private link function of the phone to call Chuck but stopped "What do we say when someone asks why cell phones work in there if nothing else does?"

He smirked "We tell them the truth, that Chuck built a custom cell repeater to boost the signal for calls to or from listed phone numbers, because he worked out a way to beat the problem ages ago. He restricted it to only those numbers that he's coded into the system because his father was part of the tinfoil hat brigade and some of that rubbed off on him."

"What do you mean by that? Uncle Stefan wasn't crazy!"

He sighed at that "Maybe not when you were around, but after Frost disappeared, he went off the reservation in a big way. We recovered him about a year after he disappeared, and thirteen years of treatment have helped a lot, but he's still paranoid and erratic."

"What happened to them Casey? I haven't been brave enough to ask Chuck or Ellie."

He hesitated, then waved her to a seat "Stefan Bartol, Orion, was the original designer of the Intersect, and in particular the Human Intersect. The initial concept wasn't too bad, it was intended to imprint personas on agents so that in a matter of minutes they could present the perfect image of who they were sent in as, that was tested and proven before Chuck was born, but Graham had oversight of the project and he was ambitious, so he started demanding that they add more and more functionality into the Human Intersect so he could justify what it was costing, and get political mileage from it. It was very much like the current project actually, as he had a hell of a lot of money and his best agent, Frost, tied up in a project that wasn't coming out with anything spectacular."

"The problem was that the human brain wasn't meant to take that, not most human brains anyway, and all their test subjects ended up dead, or vegetables. Orion was falling apart and Frost was making noises about going to the head of the CIA to get this stopped, so Graham decided to get rid of her and the problem she posed. He'd forced Orion to accept a few of his minions, like Jonas Zarnow and Ted Roark, onto the team and he came up with a scenario where they needed someone to be inserted into the arms trade in Russia immediately, so he convinced one of the scientists on the team, Hartley Winterbottom, to go in as he'd done the early trials fine. Everything was going fine, but Graham had had Roark hack up the files in the Agent X program, so he didn't turn into Alexei Volkoff, the dangerous arms dealer he was supposed to be, he turned into Alexei Volkoff, the violent psychopath."

"When Frost and Orion wanted to get him out, Graham refused, saying that he was perfect like this, and that they could extract him when the program ran its course in six months. Frost went in to get him out after six months, but the program didn't terminate, and none of the manual triggers to force it to worked either, then someone, Graham of course, told Volkoff that Frost was a CIA agent who'd been sent to kill him. Obviously the plan was to have him kill her, but when Roark hacked up the program, he'd opened access to some of Winterbottom's memories, so he thought of her as his friend Mary, and she managed to convince him that she'd turned and wanted to work with him. Some of his lieutenants weren't happy about the sway she held over him, so they investigated her with help from the CIA, and told Volkoff about Stefan, Ellie and Chuck, thinking that that would be enough to get rid of her, but she was the best agent there was back then and she convinced Volkoff that she'd made her choice. Volkoff was no fool though, so he told her that if she ever crossed him, her husband and children would die."

"Back here, Orion was losing it, he didn't want to do anything but look for Mary but Graham wouldn't let him stop working on the Intersect project, so he was working day and night to try and get Graham's Intersect out of the way so he could find Mary, and he was getting sloppy. One time he was working at home, Chuck wanted to talk to him, but he brushed him off and went away, leaving the door of his workroom open. Chuck was angry at him and when he went in to see what was more important than him, he kicked something off and loaded the early version of the intersect without any real data into himself. When Orion came back and found him there, not responding, he was frantic because he thought he'd destroyed his son, but Chuck came back, apparently fine. That was when Orion made his biggest mistake, because he decided that this version was obviously safe, and it could help him get the rest of it finished so he'd be free to look for Mary."

"It hit him a lot harder than it did Chuck, but he persisted in trying to use it, and add data to it, and he started falling apart even faster than he had before. He wasn't so far gone that he didn't realise what he'd done to himself though, and he spent the next two and a half years trying to fix it, but he was getting worse all the time, and eventually he decided that Ellie and Chuck would be better off without him than seeing him have a meltdown and become a vegetable in front of them, so he asked the General and your mother to look out for them, and disappeared."

"The General said that she told you the basics of what happened to Ellie and Chuck after that?" Sarah nodded "Well she and the others also took up the hunt for Orion after that, finding him about a year later and sending me with Frost to collect him. He'd managed to create a device that he called the governor that suppressed the Intersect activity and stopped, or at least slowed, the degeneration of his brain. By that stage, the General and the others had moved Ellie and Chuck down here and given them new identities, so Frost had gotten herself out of Russia and come back to the United States, but she was in hiding so that she wouldn't lead anyone to them. They put Orion into a private treatment facility back east, so she stayed with him to try to help him, and they've been over there ever since, as Stephen and Mary Barton, partly to avoid leading anyone to their children, but mainly because Stephen has been seeing the same psychiatrist there for the past thirteen years."

He shook his head "So that's what happened to their parents, I don't believe that they've done anywhere near enough for their children, Ellie has had to bear most of the burden of looking after Chuck and try to raise him. She's done one hell of a job, especially considering that she's only a few years older than him, but she shouldn't have had to do it on her own. The General, your mother, Bry and Roan have tried to help, and Jeff and I have too where we could since we joined, but Ellie's been bearing the brunt of it, and that's not right!"

Sarah smiled at him, because she hadn't realised before this just how much he cared for them! She thanked him for telling her, and called Chuck to come over to Casey's.

* * *

When Chuck came over, he wasn't getting much from the pictures and files that they showed him, until he happened to glance at the paper on the coffee table, and the front page article about an art auction that night was the trigger to put everything together. With that he got multiple flashes of images and information, coming up with a name, La Ciudad.

They told him he better head back while they contacted the General and Graham, because he wasn't supposed to know about this part, and after Sarah kissed him and pushed him out the door with a laugh, Casey said quietly "I hope you're in this as much as he is Walker, that slut almost destroyed him, and she didn't mean a fraction of what you do to him."

Her eyes flashed at that, but she reminded herself that this was him looking out for Chuck, so she answered him. "There hasn't ever been anyone else for me, either, Casey. I was a virgin before the training that Graham made me go through, hell I never got past first base with any boy before I found out what they were after and hurt them. I've never had any relationship or done anything that was more than cover for the job, other than what we had when we were kids, and what we've had since I came back, so yes, he's all there is for me."

He nodded, not ready to apologise for asking but accepting the truth he saw in her eyes, then they called the General and Graham.

As they were discussing the parameters for the mission, Sarah thought about what she and Casey had just been discussing, and realised that she didn't want Chuck to see ANYTHING of what she did to work marks, even if it didn't go past the flirting she fully intended to keep it to, so she tried to keep Chuck out of the mission, saying that it was too dangerous to take him in without training or field experience. Unfortunately the General had to give in to pressure to have the project produce something, so she said to send him in.

When they disconnected the link Sarah looked at Casey, and he saw part of what was going through her head "It'll be OK, if you're worried, just talk to him about it so he isn't caught out. He does have some experience at this, he'll understand." She nodded and headed over to Chuck's apartment, thinking that it was a lot better with Woodcomb gone as she let herself in.

* * *

As she was explaining that they had to, he could tell that she was worried about something, so he asked her about it. She looked at him for a minute, then told him about her discussion with Casey, and what she'd been thinking about while they were talking about the mission "I've never done anything outside of a mission Chuck, and I don't want to screw everything up because of the things I have to do to get information out of people."

His attempt to comfort her very quickly developed into rather more than that, so when the screen lit up a while later with Aunt D saying "Chuck, I…..", she saw a lot more than she expected or wanted to and quickly killed the link with a squeak.

When they'd composed and covered themselves, he called her back, but when she apologised and said that she never thought she'd see that in there, Sammie asked her to explain. "I thought you told me that Chuck was sleeping with girls all over the place Auntie Di?" "Yes, all over the place, but never THERE, he'd go wherever they wanted, but never brought any of them home, the closest he ever got in there was that one time when he was holding Anna with her top off, and that wasn't anything sexual, he was just comforting her."

Sammie snorted at that "Well that was what this started as too, but it ended up with me losing my virginity."

Aunt D looked totally confused as she said "What? But….."

Sammie shook her head "No Auntie Di, Agent Sarah Walker was far from a virgin, but me, Sammie? This was the first time I've done anything that I didn't have to for training or a mission, the first time it was my choice."

Aunt D's face fell at that "Oh Sammie Honey I'm so sorry, that was such a normal part of what I did back then and I'd been so wild before I joined that I never considered the possibility that you weren't experienced before that bastard dragged you into this life…."

She thought of something else and she looked even more distraught "We can't tell your mother about this Honey, she already feels guilty that you were dragged into this world to protect her, I don't think that she'd ever be able to forgive herself if she found out about this!"

Sammie shook her head with tears in her eyes as she thought about that "No, you're right, Mama can't know about this, she can't have that weighing on her."

Chuck held her for a while, but when she was feeling a little better he asked "What did you originally call about Aunt D?"

"Oh, it came to me after the briefing, what names are you going to use tonight? We'll need them for the invitations."

Chuck nodded and looked at Sarah, she thought for a bit and then said "Katie O'Connell, I have the paperwork and I've used it long enough for it to be familiar" that got a look from Chuck so she explained "It was one of the names I used quite a bit when I was working cons with Dad as a teenager, and I recycled most of those into my cover identities because they work better than what the idiots in the cover bureau come up with."

Aunt D nodded and looked at Chuck "Chuck?" "Charles Carmichael I think, very few people outside of the Navy or Special Forces circles know the name, and if I see anyone who knows me I can say that I came up with it to impress my date, Katie." That got him a grin from Aunt D and a dig in the ribs from Sarah.

Aunt D nodded and said that she'd get the invitations made up, and cut the link.

* * *

They swung by Maison23 to pick up the dress that had been dropped off there for her on the way to the Dungeon to get ready. Sarah was surprised to find what was essentially an upscale apartment, complete with a small but very functional kitchen, two generous bedrooms and a comfortable living area, tucked away in a corner of the bottom level, it had some bizarre features, especially the 'window's which displayed very realistic street views from around the world, and the very impressive bathroom and dressing room, which included a professional level hair and makeup station. This was intended for a woman, so she looked at Chuck with a raised eyebrow, and he said "Ellie, we've had the need from time to time to do missions like this, so I specified this for her, I've also had some training in hair and makeup so I can help if you need me to."

She looked at him speculatively "I'll get back to you on that, it sounds nice, but the last few days have been rough, and we've got a few hours up our sleeves, so I think I'm going to take a bubble bath in that decadent tub, care to join me?"

He smiled "I'd love to, why don't you draw the bath while I do a few of the things I need to do for the mission and I'll be back as soon as I can."

They spent the next hour and a half relaxing in the bubble bath, then had fun drying each other before Sarah put on her lingerie and Chuck donned some boxers to do her hair and makeup, she had to admit to being surprised by how good a job he did.

They were back upstairs on the operations centre level, ready to go, half an hour before they needed to head out. Casey was dressed in a bartender's outfit, with a chauffeur's jacket and cap next to him, as he worked at the computer. He looked up as they came in and he nodded approvingly at how Sarah looked, so she gave him a smile and a curtsey.

Casey waved at a table behind him and Chuck nodded, going over with Sarah to select cameras, communications devices and tracers that would blend in with their outfits. As they were doing so, Casey told them that Jeff and Anna were already there on the staff as backup and asked "Town Car or Continental?" Sarah saw the way he grimaced before he said "Town Car" and asked what that was about. Chuck looked at her and said "I really prefer the Continental, but it's too distinctive." She nodded, saying she'd never seen one modified quite like that before and Casey snorted, she looked at him and then back at Chuck with a raised eyebrow. He gave in quick enough.

"It's not modified, it's a ground up custom machine, reinforced carbon fibre chassis and body panels, electric motor in wheel drive, active suspension, generator plant. The only things we took from the Continentals were the styling elements, but I've always loved those '60s Continental Convertibles."

She nodded, promising herself to have a good look at it when she had a chance.

* * *

With that, they were ready, so they headed upstairs and off to the auction in the stretch Town Car. As they were heading into the auction, someone bumped into Chuck and spilled some wine on him, so he headed to the men's room to clean it up. While he was in there though he saw a man who brought up many of the same images as he'd seen when he flashed on La Ciudad. When he went back to Sarah, he indicated the man and quietly told her that that may be La Ciudad. She nodded, but hesitated, saying that she'd have to see what she could find out from him and he nodded, kissing her on the cheek, whispering "It's alright, I understand." She hugged him for that and whispered for him to go to Casey at the bar while she engaged the man.

Chuck watched as she engaged the man, but as she started working him, he turned away, knowing it would be harder for her to do what she had to do with him watching. That was why he didn't see when she was led away at gunpoint. Casey did though, and he swore before telling Chuck quietly to stay at the bar as they couldn't afford to have him compromised if he wasn't La Ciudad, Chuck glared at him but conceded his point and told him to get after her!

After five minutes he decided that he'd go stir crazy if he sat there playing 'What if?' with himself, so he took his drink and went to look at the artworks that were the point of the auction. It didn't take long to find the mediocre water lillies painting that had come up in the earlier flashes. It was different though, the frame was different, and as he noted that, he got flashes of the small containers of plutonium hidden in the other frame.

At that, someone spoke to him "Beautiful painting." He turned to the woman, Malena, who spoke and smiled, making small talk. If he'd been on the market at all, he would have certainly been interested, as she was an exotic Latin beauty, but as it was, he was only talking to try and keep his mind off what was happening elsewhere.

When the tango started playing, Malena longingly said "I LOVE a tango!" and when he agreed, asked him for a dance. As Sarah and Casey weren't back yet, and talking to her had kept his anxiety levels down, he agreed. The dance was enjoyable, as she was a good partner and he hadn't tangoed in nearly six years, but as he was dipping her at the end of the dance, her hair fell away from her neck and he saw the scar there, getting another series of flashes that confirmed that THIS was in fact La Ciudad!

He quickly looked around, but Sarah and Casey weren't back yet, and Anna and Jeff weren't in sight either, so he decided to try and stall her until they got back. As they were talking though, one of the ones who'd been part of Larkin and Roberts' sex parties back at Stanford stumbled up, off his face, calling him Chuck Bartowski and wanting to know where Jill was. Chuck shut him up with a nerve pinch that left him incapable of doing more than stumbling away in pain, but the damage was done as he saw Malena signalling to someone, so he wasn't at all surprised to feel a gun in his back about thirty seconds later, or to hear Malena suggest that they take this up to her room to get some answers. He knew that he could have taken the guy behind him, but without collateral damage or being spread across the front pages? That was something totally different, so he went along with them.

* * *

Up on the roof, Sarah was being held at gunpoint by three men, and the one Chuck had seen was demanding to know who she was when Casey burst through the door and threw her a pistol. Casey identified himself as a Federal Agent and the other one came back arrogantly with 'British Secret Service', as if they weren't operating illegally on U.S. soil without authority to do so. When Sarah told them to lower their weapons, the older British agents knew the looks in her and Casey's eyes well enough to do so, then Sarah demanded to see their credentials.

When they handed them over, she glanced at them, then put the one in charge down with a right cross, saying "We had to leave someone unprotected down there, and if anything happens to him because we got caught up with you, we'll be coming after you!" She turned to look the one who'd searched her in the eye, and put him down with a kick to the balls that left him curled up in the foetal position "Fucking pig! That's for the way you kept going after you found my thigh holster!"

She put her pistol back in its holster and handed off the MI-6 agents' guns and credentials off to Casey. The one in charge was stupid enough to demand them back, but shut up when she turned on him, saying "We'll be returning them to your consulate, with an official complaint to your government!"

With that, she and Casey ran back to the auction, but Chuck was gone!

Casey told Sarah to use her phone, as that'd be the best way to track Chuck, talking her through bringing up the ap to locate him. At the same time, Casey sent Anna and Jeff to get the Town Car and the Evo, he didn't want to say it, but if Chuck was hurt, that Evo would get him to hospital faster than anything else.

* * *

Up in Malena's room, Chuck was tied to a chair, trying to decide how long to keep playing the frightened civilian before he made a move. Malena was having fun trying to intimidate him when they heard their guard outside being taken out, so they started firing through the door and wall. With their attention taken by that, Chuck knocked the chair over and freed himself, taking down and taking out Malena's henchmen and then her quickly from behind without getting off the floor and called out to Sarah and Casey (presumably) to stop firing, they'd been dealt with.

Casey called in the on-site teams to take Malena and her men away and give the hotel and the media the story about drug dealers falling out and having a shoot out upstairs. As soon as Malena and the others were collected, they jumped into the Town Car and went back to Glendale. At Glendale, they got changed back into their normal clothes and Casey drove them back to Echo Park, dropping Sarah's dress off at Maison23 on the way to be picked up.

Chuck went back to his apartment while Sarah and Casey gave the report for the mission. In this report, Chuck had managed to identify La Ciudad, albeit with one false start involving the MI-6 guy, and though he was captured while they were tied up with Mi-6 team, they'd rescued him and captured La Ciudad with the assistance of the strike team who'd come in via the balcony (Casey had cued up this story with their usual support team who took in La Ciudad). So all in all, it was a successful mission.

Sarah also noted that they'd sent the MI-6 Agents' credentials and weapons in with the team who brought La Ciudad in, explaining what she'd told them about returning them with a official complaint. While Graham didn't seem too enthused about the idea, he agreed with the General and they kicked off proceedings to make it happen.

* * *

With that, they disconnected the link, Sarah said that she should head back to Maison23, but yawned before she'd finished the sentence, so Casey's response was "Don't be an idiot, go and spend the night with Chuck and we'll doctor the video to show you arriving in the morning." She went to argue, but yawned again, so she nodded, and headed across the courtyard, letting herself in.

Chuck was working at the computer, of course, and when she asked if it was OK to stay here as she was too tired to drive, he just gave her a look that told her what at stupid question that was, going to the bathroom to get some of Ellie's makeup remover while she was getting undressed. She was actually asleep before he'd finished removing her makeup.

In the morning, when Ellie brought in the coffees, she was surprised and pleased to see Sarah there, and ducked out to get another coffee for her.

When she came back, the link came up from Aunt D (and Auntie Em) and they were quietly talking until Sarah said "You know, what I said to Chuck about waking me up applies to you too Ellie!" she looked over to see the baleful glare being directed at her and waved her coffee mug at the screen "Don't blame me, I was just sitting here quietly until they came on-line and started talking."

The baleful glare continued for a little longer until the 'they' registered and she slowly turned her head to look at the screen, to see Auntie Di and her MOTHER smiling at her. She disappeared under the covers with a squeak remarkably similar to the one Auntie Di came out with the day before, and the "ELLIE!" that came from under the covers carried a promise of retribution, so Emma said "Honey, it wasn't Ellie's fault, Di checked in like she normally does when the security system shows that Ellie's arrived for their morning chat, and she called me when she saw you there.

It didn't help when Auntie Di added "I thought it should be safe to look when Ellie went out and came back in again, as I was pretty sure she wouldn't do that if you were doing what you were doing yesterday", as the other women of course HAD to ask about that.

Chuck cut across all this with a curt "Alright, every body out!" when they just stared in stunned silence at him using that tone on them, he said "NOW!" and at that, the links dropped and Ellie hastily scrabbled out of the room.

When she came out to the kitchen half an hour later, Sammie met Ellie's tearful apology with a hug, saying that it was OK and just pointed out that no girl wants to wake up in a guy's bed and see her mother looking at her, especially considering that, strictly speaking, she'd only met Charles Bartowski less than five days ago. She didn't mean for Ellie to hear the next part as she muttered 'and he's the only guy who's bed you've ever chosen to wake up in', but she did, and she had to know what she'd meant by that.

Sammie looked around and quietly asked whether there were any listening devices out here, when Ellie shook her head, she told her what she'd told Auntie Di the day before, that being with Chuck was the ONLY time she'd ever done anything of a sexual nature that wasn't part of what she was made to do for training or missions, so that was a first time for her, as was waking up with him. Ellie was horrified to hear that, so she was in tears when Chuck came out, Chuck wrapped his arm around her to let her cry, but at the same time reached out to draw Sammie in for a hug as well.

When things had settled down, Sammie pointed out that her Mama could NEVER hear about this, as she'd blame herself for it, Ellie nodded.

With that done, Sammie went to Casey's and they organised the video to show that she'd arrived for coffee with Chuck and Ellie before the briefing.


	6. Red & Yellow & Pink & Blue

**NB: Before anyone asks, yes, swapping back and forth between Sarah and Sammie for now is intentional. Sarah is her professional identity, but Sammie is HER.**

 **Usual disclaimers for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this isn't the real world.**

* * *

With Casey's news about Woodcomb, Graham contacted the leader of the team tasked with bringing him in as soon as he got back to his office. He decided to see how long it would take him to tell the truth, and asked what the status of the acquisition was. He was surprised when the man honestly replied "We've been tracking him heading east sir, using his flights, rentals and bus trips, trying to head him off. We haven't had any luck doing that so far sir, as he's somehow managed to stay ahead of us every step of the way, which quite frankly amazes me because being a doctor notwithstanding, by every indication the man's an idiot."

After hesitating, he added "The only option that appears to make any sense is that someone's helping him. However, the files we have don't show any connections other than the girlfriend he just left, who I don't see helping him, his frat buddies, who don't seem much brighter than he is, and his family. While his mother's a conniving bitch who may be capable of helping him, we can't find any indication that he's contacted her, so we're drawing a blank Sir, are there any other records available which may contain further information about him?"

Graham considered for about a minute, being brought out his musing by the man saying "Sir?" as though he wondered whether he was still there. Graham snapped "Wait a minute!", putting the phone down as he crossed to his safe, opening it and hunting around until he found the obscurely marked drive with the full files on Devon Woodcomb, Bruce Dawkins, Bryce Larkin and Jill Roberts. Returning to his desk, he plugged in the drive, created a folder on a share drive and, after hesitating for a bit, began copying their files into the folder. He didn't know of any connection between Woodcomb and Roberts, but given that he'd been blindsided by other aspects of those parties Larkin set up with her, she may well be part of this, and she was certainly a lot smarter than most on the list that had just been recounted.

He picked up the phone and told the man the location of the folder, and also to advise him as soon as he'd gotten what he needed from them so that the folder could be removed. He wasn't happy having these files up on the system, but this man actually appeared to be competent and the path Woodcomb was taking seemed to indicate that he was running back to his cronies from the old days. He was determined to get his hands on Woodcomb, and besides, no-one would remember the ten year old case number from the Dawkins and Woodcomb investigation that he'd used to tag the drive and the folder. As soon as the files were uploaded, he unplugged the drive and returned it to his safe.

Unfortunately for Graham, while a human was quite likely to miss the connection, Chuck had been constantly been refining the search parameters on his exercise to collect any and all information on those two, so he'd added that case number to the search parameters. That meant that on the next sweep when the case number popped up, the search engine looked into the folder and copied all the files off to the search results repository, where they were out of his reach to get rid of.

When Chuck found the contents of the folder in the search results, he couldn't believe their luck, because this was a gold mine, not only did it include all the records that had been scrubbed for Woodcomb and Dawkins, and Woodcomb, Larkin and Roberts' off the books assignments for Graham, it had the latest intel on Roberts, so it would make it a lot easier to track her down. Using this new information, he further refined the search engines, and left them running.

* * *

Meanwhile, over the next two weeks, the CCE building was coming together. The standard of work from the NSA contractors was what they expected, and Casey, Chuck and Sarah slipped out to the CCE office one night after all the contractors had finished to check on the hidden access portal built in the back of the operations bunker. While the main team had been stood down for a day to let the concrete set, a small team of specialists had been sent back in to create the portal in the back of the storeroom, as well as another hidden door between the two businesses, inserting the door frames and then bricking up and rendering over the openings. A week later, they'd slipped back in, knocking out the bricks and mortar to fit the doors, access mechanisms and shelving units that hid the portal and door.

That was what they were testing tonight, the first door on the storeroom side was just a swivelling section of the shelving and the wall behind it, but behind that were vault doors on both sides of the opening with keypads and biometric authentication devices which WEREN'T connected to any CIA or NSA systems. The portal worked fine, they released the shelves with a simple combination of buttons under the back of one shelf to swing them out of the way, and were through the two doors in just over a minute. The masking panels and shelves on either side automatically opened and shut with the vault doors behind them when accessed from the other side. They'd located the storeroom in the CCE bunker in line with a storeroom in the Dungeon, so the portal was covered up by the same swing away shelves on both sides, no-one would find it unless they knew how to get to it from either side. This meant that they could move between the two bunkers without being detected, and without fear of the Dungeon being exposed to other agents in the CCE bunker. The door between the businesses was simpler, with a bookshelf on either side released by a similar mechanism and a single, lighter grade vault door.

According to the official records, the business on the other side, Lotus Security Systems, was also owned by CCE and the CCE people did their installations for them, so both logos were in the CCE vehicles, but that was the only link between the businesses. If necessary, they'd fabricate the evidence to show that Lotus fell over so they could take over the premises down the track, but the building was too big for the initial CCE franchise and it would have looked suspicious to have half the building sitting vacant as the area around there was picking up.

As the main construction was finishing, they were debating the branding and colour schemes, Anna lost her argument for primary colours from the start, because (much to everyone's surprise) Jeff and Casey immediately agreed with Chuck and Sarah that calm pastels projected the professional image they wanted better. The outside of the mirror glass was painted with their respective business logos and livery, using matching script but in powder blue on the CCE side and pastel pink on the LSS side. The Charlemagne Computers Etc logo had a depiction of the Sword of Charlemagne in yellow and blue, and the Lotus Security Systems logo had a stylised lotus flower in pink and yellow to complete it.

* * *

While this was going on, Sarah and Casey had been feeding images and records to Chuck each day to see what the Intersect had to offer on them, and they'd started taking on jobs for CCE. It didn't take them more than a couple of days for them to start getting service calls, because as soon as the customers calling the Nerd Herd asking for Chuck were told that he'd left, they'd ask for Jeff or Anna, and when they were told they'd left too, the customers usually hung up and called Chuck (as he gave his regulars his number for emergencies) to ask what the hell was going on. When Chuck explained that he, Jeff and Anna had been poached by another company that he'd worked for before, they wanted to get them in to fix their problem, but that invariably clashed with Chuck's idea of ethical behaviour.

The third time this happened, Sarah took the phone off him and advised the people to get the Los Angeles Times tomorrow and cut out the Charlemagne Computers Etc ad, the one with the sword, so that they could tell people where they found them, but in the meantime asked for their address so she could send Chuck out. They were relieved, and asked who she was and she laughed "Oh, sorry, I'm Sarah Walker, Chuck's girlfriend, I work for CCE too." Once she had their details and the call finished, she held a finger up as Chuck went to say something and called the other two customers back, telling them the same thing, except that Jeff or Anna would be out, then she sent Chuck off to his service call with a kiss, sending Jeff and Anna off to do the other two service calls before sitting down to make up an ad and ensure that it got into the following day's paper.

Within a few days, CCE was pretty busy, because word quickly spread about where Chuck and the others had gone to, and the CCE details were passed around. The most technical jobs were of course allocated to Chuck, Jeff and Anna, but Casey was quite capable as well (surprisingly so to Sarah, until he reminded her that he'd been working with Chuck for nearly fourteen years now), and Sarah wasn't too bad herself, though she usually worked with one of the others. Actually, while things were still brittle between her and Anna, working together was helping them get past that, so she tried to do that when they could.

Of course, Sarah had to ward off advances wherever she went, and she found the best way to do that was to point out that she was taken, and she was Chuck's girlfriend, because upsetting Chuck and possibly losing his services would get those guys in a shitload of trouble with their bosses. Sarah couldn't understand the animosity towards her from the girls in many of the businesses they went to though, until Anna laughed and said "Did you really think I was the only one pining after a sweetie like Chuck? As soon as word got around that you're his girlfriend, you went straight to the top of all the girls' shit lists!" Watching Sarah struck dumb as she tried to think of how to respond to that made Anna's day.

* * *

After working from home for two weeks, the NSA contractors were done with the CCE building and the day they moved into the CCE office, they also got a visitor. When the big day arrived, Ellie decided to celebrate, with the sort of night they used to have fairly regularly back when they were happy, before Jill and Bryce Fuckin' Larkin ruined everything, this meant dinner, laughs, way too much alcohol and games, lots of games. Sarah and Anna had never experienced a night like this before, but they loved it, especially Sarah, as she was wrapped in Chuck's arms and laughing her head off most of the night, until she realised that they were being watched.

She could see that Chuck, Casey, and Ellie, had also picked up on this, but she didn't realise what Chuck was doing when he changed position until the screen that was out of sight from the windows lit up, flicking from camera to camera until their watcher came up on screen. Sarah felt Chuck relax a little when he determined that they didn't appear to be armed and he murmured in her ear "Is there some CIA ninja dress code that says that you girls have to strap your breasts up like that to try and pretend to be a man?"

When he said that, she could see that he was right, and realised that she recognised the build and movements of the figure outside, so she turned in his embrace and started kissing him, whispering to him between kisses. "Chuck, I'm pretty sure I know who that is, if I'm, right, she's DEA, not CIA, but she's a good friend. The problem is that I haven't seen her since the CATS broke up over two years ago and I don't really know where her head is at, she's been made to do the sort of things I was, but far more than I was. I could usually get out of it by killing them unless I was investigating important agents or extremely important targets, but she was forced to do it almost constantly with far worse types than I was!" Chuck's response was "Sarah, slow down Honey, I can't think straight when you're doing that!" (Sarah shocked herself when she giggled at that, she didn't giggle!)

"As much as I want you to stay, I think you need to see what she's here for, and also, see if we can talk her into coming over to us, so we can get her away from that shit."

"Oh my god, I love you so much for that!" (Woh! Did she just say that? Yes! and she meant it!) "As I said, I need to see where her head is first, she's been teetering on the edge since before she became part of this world, but if there's any way we can swing that, YES Honey, Please!"

With that, she gave him a long, sweet kiss, quite different from what they'd been doing before and reluctantly climbed off him. "Thank you for a wonderful night Ellie, but I just remembered that I have to open the office tomorrow, so I need to be getting home." Anna went to say something, but Casey silenced her with a look. Sarah gave Chuck a serious goodbye kiss, and gave Ellie a kiss and a hug before going to let herself out.

Standing in the courtyard, she looked into the shadows and quietly said "Come out Red, I know you're there!"

The black clad figure came forward "There's no way you made me!"

"And yet, the fact that we're discussing this says I did! Why are you here Red? Is it as a friend, or is it work?"

"I can't just want to see you?"

"Of course you can, but you haven't answered my question!"

"I guess it's a bit of both."

"Do you have somewhere to stay, or do you want to stay with me?"

"Shouldn't you be staying here with your mark?"

"Chuck isn't a mark, we work together."

"It sure looked like you were working him!"

"He isn't a mark but we are in a cover relationship, so, are you staying with me?"

The woman's voice turned extremely vulnerable "Can I, please?"

"Of course! But take off that stupid hood!"

The woman pulled the hood off, letting her long red hair fall down.

"That's better, what name are you using now?"

"Carina, you?"

"Sarah, OK, come on Red." And with that, she led her out of the courtyard.

Inside, when Chuck flashed on the woman's face, he went to his room and opened a link to Aunt D in Washington, he knew that it was after midnight there, but they needed answers.

When she answered he said "Sorry Aunt D, but I need to know why we have a DEA Agent, Carina Miller here, is it official?"

Aunt D rubbed her face and said "Yes Chuck, Graham pulled a fast one and convinced some heavy hitters that we need to provide support on this. I'm sorry, I only got this last night, that is a few hours ago and I thought we'd have the chance to fill in Sarah and Casey tomorrow morning before she arrived."

Chuck nodded "Do you have any information on her?"

"Some, why?"

"She's a friend of Sarah's, and I'd like to get her out of the hell she's in right now, if she's not too far gone, I'd like to bring her onto my team, and maybe the Intersect Team as well in time."

She smiled tiredly at him "You'll never stop tilting at windmills, will you Honey?"

He shook his head with a smile "Probably not Auntie Di."

She smiled again "I miss that, I'm glad at least Sammie still calls me that. I'll see what I can do, but I must tell you that the reports are that she's been seriously damaged by what's been done to her."

He nodded "That's pretty much what Sarah said, maybe we can get her pulled out of rotation for a while and put her with Dr Dreyfus?"

"I'll try, I'll get back to you when I have more information."

"Thanks Auntie Di, sorry to wake you, good night."

"Night Honey."

With that they cut the link and Chuck went back to the living room.

They looked at him and he said "Our visitor is a friend of Sarah's, a DEA Agent currently going by Carina Miller" he looked at Casey "You know her John, tall redhead, likes handcuffs?" Casey went white and Chuck smiled, then went on "Graham has pulled something so that we need to work with her on her current mission, you'll get the briefing from Aunt D and Graham in the morning."

Casey nodded, and with that they decided to call it a night, so Casey, Jeff and Anna went back to their apartments and Chuck and Ellie cleaned up the debris of the party.

* * *

In the morning, Sarah brought Carina back to Echo Park, and left her in the courtyard as she went in to see Chuck. Carina noted the way she let herself into the apartment, and saw the curtains move as she entered Chuck's room, so she went to peek in the window, taking in the way she lovingly kissed him and lay in his arms as they talked for about five minutes. That was no cover relationship, if she wasn't doing a masterful job of working this guy, that was real! Maybe that was why she didn't want to talk about Bryce? When Sarah climbed off him after one last kiss, Carina hastily moved back to where she was before.

Sarah came out and told her that she'd have to wait out here while she and Casey had their briefing, and she nodded. In the briefing, Sarah tried to argue that it was too much of a risk to have someone with Carina's proclivity of going off mission that close to Chuck, as she hadn't got a good feeling off her last night when they talked, she was closer to going over the edge now than she'd been when they were first room mates in Paris on the CAT Squad, and she'd been pretty marginal then. When Graham just ignored her, Casey tried to make him listen, but Graham just laughed at him getting caught with his pants down in Prague, so they wound up the briefing and Sarah called Chuck to meet them outside.

When Chuck came out of his apartment, Carina got to see him for the first time out from under Blondie, and she liked what she saw! Tall, athletic build, cute, adorkable, he looked so sweet and innocent! Sarah and Casey came out of Casey's apartment straight after that, so she quickly schooled her expression, and she was introduced to Sarah's 'cover' boyfriend, Chuck, the analyst.

They had to talk about this mission, so they suggested that Carina follow them to the office (she'd left the mustang she was using at the apartments the night before), and they could talk there. She had to laugh when she saw the minivan that Chuck was driving, yeah, he was an analyst alright, because no spy would drive that! Even Casey's Grandpa Crown Vic wasn't that embarrassing. She couldn't work out why the CIA's and NSA's top spies were sitting in an out of the way operation in Los Angeles like this though, and Sarah wouldn't tell her.

In the office, Sarah arranged for their two civilian employees to go out on service calls, then took Carina downstairs to the bunker to talk. Carina couldn't believe it as she looked around, there was something SERIOUSLY out of place about this operation, two top agents and an operations centre like this buried in Los Angeles? There was a secret here, and it had to be a big one! How was she going to find out what it was though? There was no way she was going to break the Ice Queen, whenever she'd asked about their operation here, she just said that she couldn't tell her, and even when she'd blown his mind so much that he didn't notice when she handcuffed him to the bed, she still hadn't gotten as much as she wanted out of Casey.

Sarah was getting frustrated with Carina kept avoiding her questions, so she called Chuck and Casey down to the bunker to sort out how they were going to do this. As he was bringing up images and plans of Alahi's compound, Carina was beginning to see how Chuck fitted into an operation like this, as he was better than any other analyst she'd ever seen, but when he excitedly asked her what Argentina was like, as he'd always wanted to go there, she smiled to herself, NOW she knew how to get the information she needed.

They mapped out how they'd proceed, a daylight reconnaissance mission at Alahi's perpetual pool party, followed by the infiltration to grab the diamond later, and Sarah and Carina took Chuck along to get a new outfit for him when they went shopping for clothes, but Carina had palmed one of Chuck's cards with his emergency after hours call number during one of Sarah's (many) visits to his office.

* * *

In the early hours of the morning, Carina called Chuck's emergency number, expecting him to be groggy as he woke up, but she was shocked when he answered immediately, obviously wide awake. She wasn't a spy for nothing though and she quickly disguised her voice with a Swedish accent and broken English as she babbled in a panic that she had the presentation of her career to make in the morning and she'd just lost EVERYTHING. He calmed her down and got her hotel address and room number, saying that he'd be there within half an hour.

When she opened the door wearing a robe and obviously very little else, he turned to walk away, but she stopped him with "Chuck, please, I need to talk to you!", so he gave in and entered her room. Once he was inside, she said "I know you're no simple analyst Chuck, because you couldn't access those files about Argentina without G6 or above clearance, and that means you have to be an Agent."

He looked at her "What do you need to talk about Carina?" She looked him in the eye and said "This mission, getting that diamond, it will make me or break me Chuck, and I need to know that I can depend on your team, but Sarah won't tell me anything about it. Please Chuck, what do I have to do to get you to tell me enough to know that I can trust that you can come through for me!" She'd pulled the tie on her robe and slipped it off her shoulders to drop it to the floor as she spoke, so she now stood in front of him wearing nothing but a very transparent thong and heels, she was effectively naked.

Chuck glanced at her dispassionately and stood up, picking up his case. "If you don't believe that we can deliver for your mission, I'd suggest you request another team Carina. Sarah's told you everything she's permitted to, even though you've withheld information from us about the mission. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to get back to."

Carina couldn't understand it, that would have done it with just about any other guy, she'd obviously have to work harder here though. She snorted at him in derision "You may be an agent, but you obviously don't understand spies Chuck, do you really think what you have with Sarah is real? She's just working you, you fool, she isn't over Bryce…" When Chuck reacted at the name, she thought she had him, so she sidled closer, dropping her voice "Oh you know about him, well did she tell you that he was her boyfriend for two years, right up until he died?…." At that, Chuck's face hardened, and he grabbed her and threw her onto the bed as if she was nothing more than a rag. He looked at her with pity, saying "As I said, if you don't believe that we can deliver for your mission, you should request another team" and walked out, closing the door behind him.

As she lay there, she couldn't believe it, when he threw her on the bed she was sure she had him, enough angry sex and he would have told her everything she wanted to know, so what the fuck just happened? She knew from experience that Larkin would have been putty in her hands when she dropped the robe, shit, she could have done that when she opened the door without bothering with the rest of it. She'd NEVER failed to work a guy before, but this guy looks at her with PITY and walks out when she's laying here like this for fuck's sake? Then she froze, what had she done? If he told Blondie about this, she'd never forgive her!

When the alert went off to say that someone had entered the Dungeon in the early hours of the morning, Aunt D brought up the monitors to find Chuck in the gym, and he was angry. No, it was more than that, she hadn't seen him this angry since those two betrayed him like that, so she brought up a link "What happened?" He glanced at the screen "Have you talked to Dr Dreyfus yet?" "No, I haven't had a chance to get away to see him as yet. WHAT HAPPENED?"

He calmed down a little and quietly said "She's really fucked up Auntie Di." He grabbed a towel and wiped his face, then told her what had happened in Carina's hotel room.

Casey had been woken by the alert and was watching and listening to this too. He shook his head, impressed, he knew from personal experience that he would have buckled to the redhead long before that, but Chuck was right, she was fucked up if she'd go to these lengths when she already knew that they were going to help her. He wasn't surprised to hear them talking about Dr Dreyfus, even if he wasn't doing this for Sarah he would have tried to help her when he found out the state she was in, that was who he was. He also wasn't surprised to hear them agree to keep this from Sarah, as it would hurt her to know that a friend would do this. When this became a private conversation between the General and her godson, Casey cut the link and went back to bed.

* * *

The next day, Chuck and Casey (as the chauffeur) picked up Sarah and Carina at Maison23, and Sarah was surprised to see that they were in the Continental, as it certainly WAS distinctive with the top down like that. When she asked him about it, Chuck just shrugged, saying that it was too nice a day to be hemmed in in the Town Car, but she could tell that he was on edge, and he hardly said a word to Carina, so she knew that something had happened. Carina was watching them closely, and was relieved to see that he didn't tell her about last night. The tension was almost enough to take her attention away from the car, almost, but a convertible stretch limo? That was just too marvellous to ignore, where did you find something like this?

As she obviously wasn't going to get any answers out of Chuck, Sarah just snuggled up to him and enjoyed the ride, she could see why she preferred the Continental, being distinctive was only a small part of it, it was far more comfortable than the Town Car, too. When they were getting close to Alahi's mansion, Chuck called out "John", and when he looked back, motioned to put the roof up. Casey nodded and pulled over briefly to raise the roof and windows, Sarah was pleasantly surprised to find that even closed up it still felt roomier and nicer than the stretch Town Car, the silver interior feeling more open.

She noted that while he politely handed Carina out of the car, he didn't hold her hand a second longer than necessary, something had obviously happened that she didn't know about. She took his arm as they headed in to the pool party to ask him about it, but he just brushed it off, telling her that she'd faked an emergency support call last night to try and pump him for information, and when he found out it was her, he'd gone home. She stopped and made him look at her, trying to make him tell her what happened, but he disarmed her by telling her that it was alright and kissing her sweetly before proceeding on into the party.

She shook that off and went after Carina then, Chuck may be able to disarm her, but Carina would tell her what she'd done or else! Unfortunately Carina was into the party by the time she caught her, so it was too public to have more than a hissed argument "What did you do?" Carina shrugged "You wouldn't tell me about your operation here, so I thought I'd get the information out of your boy toy, but you've trained him well and he wouldn't tell me either, relax Blondie, we didn't 'do' anything!" The way she said that made Sarah freeze and Carina realised that she'd said too much, so she tried to deflect with "Don't you think we should be focussing on the mission instead of standing around chatting?" and pulled away from her.

As they strolled around the property, Chuck was cataloguing all the security, and it wasn't only Carina who was surprised by how much more he was seeing than her, Sarah was still finding out how much Chuck could do. They didn't see any guards on the side of the mansion that the design said was the most logical location for the diamond, so they investigated, locating it in a display room. Carina used a device she had to generate a keycard for the access mechanism, but when she confirmed that it worked, instead of taking off so that they could plan the infiltration mission, she went in.

This was pure Carina, throwing the plans out the window all the time, but it was putting Chuck in danger, so she was trying to get her to leave when they heard a round being chambered in a pistol behind them. Sarah's stomach churned when she turned to see Alahi standing there, as the tiny swimmers he was wearing left absolutely nothing to the imagination, though he wasn't exactly uncovered, as he had a thick pelt covering his entire body. The worst part of it was that the disgusting little troll actually thought he was appealing and tried to charm them, so she had to force the gorge down as she put on her ditzy valley girl act and play up to him. She could have killed Carina when she introduced them as sisters, and Chuck as their brother, but it meant that Alahi thought that he was going to get lucky, so he sent the guards away. At least they managed to get a number of details about the security controls out of them as he was checking them out and handling them.

Unfortunately, Sarah was obviously the one who'd caught Alahi's eye, so she was the one who'd need to distract him. She had to force herself not to react to the way he was groping her and leering at her, and she couldn't look at Chuck, as she would have lost it if she saw his reaction to this, so she forced the gorge down and asked Alahi about the pretty paintings outside, and he jumped at the chance to get her alone.

Inside the room, Carina stumbled back at the look Chuck gave her for causing this, because it was a look of death, and his anger was all directed at her at that point. He turned his attention back to the Nadan-I-Noor, and flashed on the security features, dispassionately telling her that the stone was protected by 20,000 volts of electricity. He wanted to ignore her when she asked how to get around that, but knew that they had to stay successful to prevent the Intersect Project being canned, which would put Sarah in danger, so he suggested something like compressed air to blow it off the pedestal, seeing fire extinguisher on the wall, he waved to that and said 'Perhaps that?'

Before he could stop her, she grabbed the fire extinguisher and shot a blast of CO2 at the diamond to send it flying, Chuck caught it in mid-air as the alarms went off, the door started coming down and gas was released into the room. Carina kicked over a pedestal to block the door, probably destroying a priceless bust in the process, saying "Come on!" as she did a perfect little league slide under the door, he stuffed the diamond into his pocket and followed her, just clearing the door as he was bigger.

* * *

Outside, he saw that Sarah had taken out Alahi and the guards who came running at the alarm, but she grabbed his hand to drag him to his feet and ran. They took off in the opposite direction to the pool party and ran down a path to the beach, with Sarah calling Casey to get them out of there. Of course, the guards had no trouble working out where they were going and not being hampered by the high heels that Sarah and Carina didn't have time to take off, caught up with them just after they reached the beach. The first few shots that Chuck returned with his Glock 29 incapacitated three of the guards and made the others dive for cover, and then the Continental was there and Casey was laying down covering fire with an MP5/10, so Chuck pushed the girls into the car, then once he was inside with the window open, Casey tossed him the MP5/10 to take over covering them as he jumped in to get them out of there.

Inside the car, Sarah was reconciling what she'd seen when she turned to look at the Continental arriving, it was riding about 6" higher than it had been before, with paddles protruding from the tyres (or more accurately, tweels, as Chuck explained when she asked later) to give it traction in the sand. However it was done, that stretch limo showed that it was a quite capable off-road machine as it charged across the beach. She felt it settle as it left the beach, and as it barrelled along the twisting road to get away from Malibu and the expected routes, it proved that it was a lot more capable than something its size should be on-road as well.

They ignored Carina as they asked each other if they were OK, and none of them spoke to her until they were back in Echo Park in Casey's apartment, and even then that was mainly Casey laughing at her as he locked the diamond away in the safe there. With all the aggravation though, Sarah clean forgot that Carina was quite capable of cracking a safe of that type until the alarms went off just after they got back to the CCE office via Maison23.

They rushed back to Echo Park to confirm that she had indeed taken the diamond and Sarah made Chuck tell her where she was staying, refusing to let him come with her as she had to handle this herself. Casey went back to the office and Chuck settled down to do some work in his room, but a while after Sarah left, the alerts went off to indicate movement in the courtyard, and when he brought it up on screen, he saw Carina out at the fountain, crying.

* * *

When he went out, she raved that she had to talk to Sarah, to explain why she did it, she had to make it right between them! He held her as she cried, and smiled when after a little while his phone rang and he saw it was Sarah, he answered, saying "Hey, she's..." but was cut off by her telling him that she needed him to find Carina and tell her to bring the diamond to her hotel. His blood ran cold as he realised what had happened, and then Alahi took the phone off her and told him that if he didn't have his diamond in an hour, the blonde was history and hung up.

Chuck looked at his phone for a bit and then said "Where's the diamond?"

Carina looked up "What?" "WHERE'S THE FUCKING DIAMOND?"

She hastily dug it out of her pocket and held it up "It's here, why?"

He snatched it off her, saying "Because Alahi has Sarah and he's going to kill her if he doesn't have his diamond inside an hour!" With that he turned and headed for the minivan.

"No Chuck! Let me go, Sarah will kill me if anything happens to you!"

He kept going as he said "Go back to what you do Carina, the people who love her will look after Sarah."

At that she raced after him and planted herself in front of him, crying angrily "Don't you dare say that! I love her more than anyone else in this world! I got her into this and I have to get her out of this! Now give me the diamond so I can save her!"

His expression softened a little as he said "No, but I'll let you help, come on."

Thirty seconds later Carina was hanging on for grim death as this minivan that she'd been laughing at the previous morning was heading to Glendale at unbelievable speeds, how could it go this fast! Chuck called Casey on the way to explain what had happened, and he was waiting outside CCE when they got there. How they picked him up didn't qualify as a stop and go as Chuck didn't stop. He opened the side door as they approached and he slowed just enough for Casey to jump in as they passed. Casey strapped himself in and used the computer to bring up the information about the hotel, telling Chuck to drop him off around the corner so he could go in the rear entrance. Casey deposited a pair of Chuck's Glock 20s in the console, along with Sarah's preferred S&W and then jumped out on the move, just like he'd jumped in.

When he left the minivan out the front of the hotel, the only thing distinctive about it was the strong smell of burning rubber emanating from it. As they walked in, she whispered "Let me do the talking, please?" and he nodded slightly as he was cataloguing the threats, which appeared to be about two thirds of the people in the foyer, the prime one being the goon who was holding a pistol to Sarah's head.

Carina was rabbiting on to wind up Alahi and stall for time as she waited for Casey to get in position behind the one holding a gun on Sarah. When he was in position, she cued up Sarah in Swedish, and told her to drop at the right moment so that Casey could take the goon out, then Chuck was kicking Sarah's pistol to her as he drew his 20s and engaged the targets. Inside twenty seconds, Chuck, Casey and Sarah (mainly Chuck) had taken out every one of Alahi's men, and Alahi was the only one left standing. Sarah saw Alahi staring at Chuck though, and she knew that he'd seen what had happened. She also knew that as soon as he was taken into custody, everyone would know about Chuck, so she drew a deep breath and said "Alahi!", blowing the top of his head off when he turned to look at her. Carina was also staring at Chuck, but she was hoping that they could come up with a different solution for her.

* * *

Casey had called in the team waiting outside as soon as the shooting stopped, and they were soon spinning the story that most of the drug dealers had been taken out by their snipers. Chuck handed off the Nadan-I-Noor to the head of their support team to take in with the bodies, and tossed the keys to the minivan to Casey, nodding at Carina to tell him to take her back. Casey nodded, and took her by the arm to lead her out while Chuck led Sarah in the opposite direction to her Porsche. She insisted that she was alright to drive, so he let her.

Sarah was quiet on the way back, and was for once happy to keep to the speed limit as she processed this. About halfway back to Glendale, she suddenly said "Your combat experience, it's not just military, that wasn't a military shootout, that was an agents' firefight!"

Chuck just said "Yes"

"Who?"

"DIA, NSA, FBI, ATF and USMS"

She took her eyes from the road for a moment to stare at him "Seriously?" He just nodded.

"Am I ever going to find out what you are Chuck?"

"Ask me anything you want, but first I think we need to sort out Carina's situation, she needs help."

"What did she do last night?"

"Nothing happened Sarah, trust me."

"Oh Chuck, I do! OK, I suppose a better question is 'what did she try to do?' then."

"Well I know she's not a natural redhead, can we leave it at that please?"

"WHAT?"

"Please? As I said, she needs help, it's not her fault, it's those bastards who've screwed with her head all this time. I didn't have to go find her, she was right there because she was desperate to make things right with you!"

She was quiet for a while, then she nodded "OK, but I'm going to kick her arse for that sometime!"

Casey and Carina were there when they arrived, which caused Casey to raise an eyebrow at them, but Chuck shook his head, and led the way downstairs.

* * *

They had the Administrator of the DEA sitting in on the briefing this time because it was his operation, and he, and Graham, weren't at all happy about the fact that the diamond was on its way to the State Department to be returned to its rightful owners, or that Alahi had been killed in the shootout. As soon as the briefing was done, the Administrator angrily told Carina that she was to be on a plane to Columbia within two hours. Sarah had positioned herself so that they couldn't see her hands and signalled her not to say a thing.

As soon as the link was disconnected Sarah said "Come on!" and quickly led the way to the store room, Carina baulked at that, but Casey gave her a nudge, whispering "It'll be OK" in her ear. Casey manually bolted the storeroom door from the inside while Chuck keyed the release for the shelves, and Carina blurted out "What the fuck?" when she saw the vault door, but couldn't manage more than "What?" when she saw the second vault door behind it.

By the time they got to the operations centre in the Dungeon, Aunt D was on the screen. She could see the state that Carina was in, but they had to get this done, so she launched into it "Miss Miller, as you just heard, we don't have much time for this, so I must be blunt, you're a mess, and you know things that you shouldn't, but Chuck and Sarah want to save you, so we're offering you a chance to come over and join us."

Carina was in tears again "I'd love to, but you heard him, there's no way that he'd let me go!"

Aunt D smiled grimly "He won't have any choice in the matter, I must ask for your formal answer Miss Miller, do you wish to leave the DEA and join us?"

"Yes ma'am, I do, but who's 'us'?"

"Initially it will be the DIA, but I expect that that will be added to later. Special Agent Smith, are you able to prepare the case we need to transfer Special Agent Miller from the DEA to your team in the necessary timeframe?"

"Yes ma'am."

Chuck turned to Carina, pushing a pen and paper to her "Write down your official name and identity, along with every significant cover name and operation that you can remember." He looked at Sarah and added "Include what you did with the CAT Squad, but do it as quick as you can."

"Sarah, as she finishes a page, can you bring it over to me please?"

He kissed Sarah and went over to the primary computer facilities, and soon the screens started filling up with images and records relating to Carina. She was still sitting there in a daze, so Sarah said "Carina! Come on!" and she got started, quickly filling the pages. Sarah grabbed the pages and ran them over to Chuck as soon as she tore them off, and she'd written down everything that she could think of in a little over half an hour. Seeing that she'd started in the CIA after being grabbed by Graham, and when, made Sarah's eyes go wide, as did her age and the number of major achievements she had under her belt.

* * *

They were both watching Chuck work after she'd given him what she could, and Carina (which was her official name, actually) asked "Sarah, what is he? He's like nothing I've ever seen before!" Sarah shook her head "I don't really know Carina, but I'm making it my life's mission to find out!" She felt a tap on her shoulder, and Casey nodded for her to follow him. She looked at Carina and he nodded, so she grabbed Carina's hand and tugged her along as she followed Casey. He led them down to the bottom level and to the 'apartment', where Aunt D was on the screen.

Carina looked at Sarah when she greeted her with "Hi Auntie Di", and she responded with "Hello Sammie, I hear that you'd like to know more about Chuck?"

"Yes Auntie, with the revelations I'm getting, I'm beginning to think that I don't know him at all!"

"OK, here's the cliff notes version, he's is Lieutenant Colonel Philipe Beaumont in the Air Force, Commander Charles Carmichael in the Navy, Colonel John Smith in the Army and Major Jacob Bowman in the Marines. He's also Special Agent in Charge Philipe Beaumont in the FBI, Special Agent in Charge Charles Carmichael in the NSA, Special Agent in Charge John Smith in the DIA, and Special Agent Jacob Bowman in the ATF. The Special Agent in Charge roles are for running some of our SIGINT and other groups, as well as the fact that he's the officer in charge of the Glendale Station for the NSA, DIA and FBI. He's also Deputy U.S. Marshal John Smith in the USMS's Special Operations Group"

"Sorry Auntie Di, what's the Glendale Station?"

"You're in it, unfortunately I've never been able to get anyone but Major Casey to refer to it as anything but the Dungeon."

"While we're at it, you may as well know that Ellie's Colonel Rebecca Cohen in the Air Force, Commander Eleanore LaBelle in the Navy, Major Susan Jones in the Army and Major Mary Devlin in the Marines, Special Agent Rebecca Cohen in the FBI, Special Agent in Charge Susan Jones in the DIA, Special Agent in Charge Eleanore LaBelle in the NSA and Special Agent Mary Devlin in the ATF, she heads up Information Dominance, SIGINT and analysis groups as well….. John?"

Casey nodded "John is Major Alexander Coburn in the Air Force, Commander Thomas Brown in the Navy, Major Peter Collins in the Army and Major John Casey in the Marines, Special Agent Alexander Coburn in the FBI, Special Agent John Casey in the NSA, Special Agent Thomas Brown in the DIA, Special Agent Peter Collins in the ATF and Deputy U.S. Marshal Thomas Brown in the USMS's Special Operations Group."

"Before you ask, yes, all these identities and functions are essentially legitimate and recognised, and they've been signed off from the very top for most of the fourteen years they've existed, this was done to allow them to work with whatever branch of the services that they need to and follow their investigations through when they change jurisdiction."

Carina spoke up "May I ask a few questions ma'am?"

"Certainly Carina."

"I suppose the big ones are, how will you be able to force the DEA to release me, how could Chuck have been in this for fourteen years, unless he's a lot older than he looks, where'd he learn to do what he does, are those so called civilian employees up there part of this, and why does Sarah call you Auntie Di?"

Aunt D smiled at her "Good questions Carina, first, we can force the DEA to do this because the order and case that Chuck is writing up will be signed off by the President, he's waiting in his office for it to arrive and the Administrator of the DEA has been ordered to do the same. Chuck just turned twenty six a few weeks ago, he started this when he was twelve as an analyst, by the time he was thirteen he was infamous as the hacker the Piranha, and he was a legend in special ops circles as 'Smith' when he was fifteen. He's highly trained and has been doing serious combat missions for eleven years. Yes, Jeff's been part of this for over ten years and Anna for over five years, Jeff's a Navy Lieutenant Commander, Anna's a Navy Lieutenant, and they're both DIA and NSA Agents and FBI Special Agents. And Sarah, or rather Sammie calls me Auntie Di because she knew me when she was a little girl, both her mother and Chuck's are good friends of mine."

She hesitated and then continued "As I said at the start, both Chuck and Sarah are concerned about you Carina, so one of the conditions of you coming over will be you coming east and seeing our psychiatrist until he's convinced that your issues have been properly addressed."

"What do you mean? I don't need a shrink!"

Sarah's voice was low and dangerous as she asked "Are you saying that you knew what you were doing when you lured Chuck to your hotel room and tried to screw what you wanted out of him last night?"

"What, no, he told you?"

"He wouldn't tell me more than that he knows that you aren't a natural redhead when he was arguing that we need to get you help. That tells me everything I need to know, and if you're telling me that you're happy the way you are and intend to stay that way, then you and I have BIG issues!"

Carina was in tears "NO! I don't want to be this way, but I don't know how to deal with it!"

Aunt D's voice was gentle as she said "That's why you need to come east Carina, so we can help you with that."

Carina was sobbing now, and all she could do was nod.

At that moment Aunt D got an email and she started looking at it, to confirm that she had everything she thought she needed. "OK, I have to get this to the President to get him to sign it off…." She stopped and looked up at the screen "I have to go!" and cut the link.


	7. Mr Smith Goes To Washington

**Usual disclaimers for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed, and the real world's back there somewhere, on the left I think.**

* * *

When the General dropped off the link, Sarah and Carina looked at each other, confused, and Casey said "I think you should see something." They nodded and stood up, but Carina took note of where they were for the first time and asked "What is this place?"

Casey glanced about "It's the apartment" Carina pointed to the 'window', which was sporting a view very much like the view they'd had from the apartment that she and Sarah had shared in Paris when they were on the CAT Squad assignment and asked "How is that possible?" Casey picked up a controller as he said "Chuck decided that it'd be more comfortable down here if it didn't feel like you're buried in a hole, would you prefer this, or this, or this?" As he spoke, he hit buttons on the controller, flicking from New York, overlooking Central Park, to Rome, to a tropical resort.

Carina was feeling rather like Alice after falling down the rabbit hole, and it showed. Sarah smiled and grabbed her hand, saying "You'll appreciate this!" and dragged her through to show her the hair and makeup station. Once Carina had been shown the key features of the apartment, Sarah turned to Casey saying "Sorry Casey, what did you want to show us?" and he turned to lead the way out the door.

He took them to the gym, and pointed to a split heavy bag that had been taped up to keep most of the filling inside "That's what he did after your games last night" Sarah turned on Carina and said "For the last time, what did you do?" Carina was sobbing again, but she told her everything that was done and said in her room, explaining that she was hoping that a secret as big as she was sure their's had to be would have given her the leverage to get away from some of the shit that they made her do.

Sarah was angry, but Casey touched her on the arm, shaking his head, as he'd heard the things that Chuck had dredged out of the Intersect about her when he was telling the General. Carina caught that and said "You know! But how?" He looked at her for a bit and said "Maybe you should see something else" and brought up the footage of Chuck's discussion with the General, up to the point where he'd stopped watching.

Afterwards he said "It's just lucky Graham didn't know about you, as he probably would have sent you in to try and work Chuck, and failing to do so would have gone bad." Sarah knew that he was wrong about Graham knowing about her, but she froze like Casey when Carina replied in a flat voice "Oh, he knows, he and his buddies, including the Administrator of the DEA, were in on my 'training' when I was sixteen, he gave me to the DEA when I was eighteen, on the understanding that he could get me back when he wanted me, after I killed one of the sick bastards that he sent me in to work."

She looked up at Sarah "Maybe it's time you knew how he made me work for him thirteen years ago. I'd been on my own since one of Mama's boyfriends caught me and raped me when I was eleven, and she called a whore for trying to take him away from her. I learned the tricks of the trade, and I was doing fairly well, hitting the bastards with more money than sense, up until I tried to work a party in Connecticut when I was sixteen" she looked at Sarah "It was much the same as what we do now, you know how a pretty girl in a tiny dress can get into anywhere?" Sarah nodded "Anyway, once I was in, I'd clean out what valuables I could find, crack the safe if there was one and I'd be on easy street for a while, but that time the trust fund jock who was throwing the party and his buddies caught me. They took turns on me for a couple of hours until I got my hands on a cork screw and killed them all, I went a little crazy and there was blood everywhere. The problem was that I was too knocked about by what they'd done to me to even think about security cameras, and a few days later I was grabbed by men in bad suits and taken to Graham."

"He showed me the video of what I did, of course with everything they did to me edited out, and then took me on a field trip to a prison that was straight out of one of those movies back when I was a kid, the women were constantly being raped by the guards or the inmates and farmed out to the rough sex industry. Graham told me that I'd work for him and do everything I was told, or I'd be sent there, and the betting pool on how long I'd last didn't go past two to three months. So I agreed to work for him in hope that I could escape, but he made sure that I didn't until he'd made me into what I am, and escaping wouldn't do me any good."

Sarah was too horrified to speak at first, what she'd been put through wasn't anything like that, but she took Carina's hands and when she could speak she told her it wasn't too late, this Dr Dreyfus they were sending her to was good, he could help her, and when he did, she could come back to a life without that. At that point, Chuck spoke from the door to the gym "He is good Carina, he put my father back together from the point where he could barely function, and you won't need a fraction of what he did to be whole again." She looked up at him and nodded with a thankful smile.

He looked at the heavy bag he'd split and said "I actually came down to clean up the mess I made last night" at that they looked at the floor and realised that the floor was covered with something, but it wasn't sand. Sarah went over to pick up some of it and asked "Is this shot?" Casey nodded "He likes, well we like, a heavy bag for a hard workout, so we've got a couple of bags in here filled with shot" Sarah reached up to push the bag, and it hardly moved, but her mind flashed back to how the video had shown Chuck knocking the bag about last night, how hard must he have been hitting it to do that?

She turned to look at him speculatively "Am I ever going to know you?" he came over to wrap her in his arms and kiss her on the forehead, murmuring "I'm sure you will by our golden wedding anniversary, maybe even our silver anniversary..." She just hugged him, marvelling at the fact that that idea didn't scare her at all, in fact it sounded deliciously wonderful. Chuck kissed her on the head again and went to get the clean-up gear they kept in the gym for these eventualities. He'd just finished when the screen lit up with Aunt D's image "Hello team, I just wanted to let you know that the President has signed off the orders and made the Administrator of the DEA formally acknowledge receipt, and compliance with all the caveats. The President particularly liked those caveats Chuck, and so did I! I have the other order here, shall I hold it until it's required?"

"Yes please Auntie Di" She nodded and addressed Carina "You've officially been released from the DEA Carina, though it will take some time to finalise everything, especially as the records show that you're currently on the plane to Columbia?" Chuck slapped himself of the forehead "Shit! I forgot to cancel that!" Aunt D quirked a smile at that and continued "We can start on your inductions now, but before we do that, I wanted to know what name you want to use? Carina Miller is rather infamous, do you want to be associated with her?"

Carina looked at the screen "No, I don't General. As I'm making a new start here, this is my chance to wind back the clock, so the name I'd like to use is Carina Hansen."

Aunt D nodded "Just to clarify, H, A, N, S, E, N?"

"Yes, that's it, thank you General."

"Very well, I'll get proceedings started, now I think we should let the dust settle before we move you, so it would be best if you stayed out of sight there for a couple of weeks."

"Where, exactly, General?"

"Right there, in the apartment, I can assure you that it's quite comfortable, I've stayed there myself a few times. You may want to have a think about whether you'd like to go back to your natural hair colour as well, to put Diablo Rojo behind you?"

Carina winced at hearing that particular nickname, obviously that report Chuck put together had been quite thorough, but she nodded and thanked her, and with that they wound up the call.

When Aunt D was gone, Chuck suggested that Sarah stay with Carina for a while, but pointed out that he and Casey needed to get back to work, because they'd fallen behind at CCE. Sarah was about to say that she should come back as well when she saw the hopeful look on Carina's face, so she agreed that that was a great idea and pushed Chuck out the door with a kiss. They said that they'd drop her gear off later, as Jeff and Anna had cleared out her room and left the Mustang at the hotel to be picked up.

When they went back to work in CCE, they found that the work orders and repair jobs had really piled up in the days that Chuck, Sarah and Casey had all been sidelined, so when Sarah started back the next day, everyone was flat stick. After telling Chuck off for not calling her in when he saw what a workload they had, she fell to as well. They also got Carina up to let her see the real world and help out where she could.

Two days later, they were still at it, but they were in a rhythm and going strong as dinner time came and went, so it was decided that someone should do a food run while the others kept working. Sarah volunteered, and grabbed Chuck to do the carrying for her as she could see him flagging and thought he needed a break. He'd hardly gotten any rest at all since he'd gone to Carina's hotel room in the early hours of the morning two days before, and while he'd done what he had to in the action in the hotel foyer, she could see that those deaths were weighing on him now.

The consensus was for Chinese, and on the way to Chinatown, Chuck suddenly had a hankering for sizzling shrimp, which he hadn't had for ten years, so he headed for the Bamboo Dragon. They'd placed their orders and were talking while they were waiting in the front of the Bamboo Dragon for them to be prepared when Chuck flashed on a tattoo on the inside of one the waitresses' forearms. Sarah recognised the flash for what it was and pulled him down for a kiss, whispering in his ear "What did you see?" He whispered back "The waitress at table fifteen.." he gave her a moment to glance over "She's Cho Mei-Ling, Chinese Intelligence, she's never set foot on U.S. soil before!" "Are you sure?" "Pretty sure, yeah!" "Damn!"

She grabbed her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and looked at it as if it had just gone off on vibrate, when she was in fact calling Casey on speed dial "Da Dyadya Alexei?" This was followed by a rapid discussion in Russian (from her side anyway, as Casey's Russian was pretty good) as she passed on what Chuck had told her, only lowering her voice when she repeated the name, but looking at Chuck and turning away as if he wasn't supposed to hear that. When she finished she looked upset, so Chuck played the dutiful boyfriend "What's wrong?" She pouted "Uncle Alexei's getting impatient for his food and he won't accept that it's not my fault!"

He pulled her into a hug to comfort her and whispered in her ear "You really are incredible Agent Walker!" She snickered quietly "I have to be to keep up with my boyfriend, or is it fiancé, considering that he was just talking about our wedding anniversaries?" Her breath caught when he answered quite seriously "All you have to do is let me know when you're ready to have me ask the question!" She clung to him as if her life depended on it for a few minutes, and when she relaxed her grip he kissed her on the forehead and asked "What did Casey say?" "He'll meet us here, and Chuck?" "Yeah?" "I'm ready when you are!" With that she raised her face for a kiss. A few of the people watching were frowning at them, but most clearly though that this was very sweet.

When they had the food, they went back to the CCE van and moved it to where they had line of sight for the cameras while they waited for Casey. As she wasn't much of a seafood person, Sarah was surprised to find that she loved the sizzling shrimp. They were surprised by how long it took Casey to get there, but they understood when he plugged in the drive that had everything in the system about Cho Mei-Ling.

Chuck couldn't understand why Sarah seemed to be getting angrier as they were going through the reports until she started paging through them quickly and said "Chuck?" quite tersely "Yeah?" "Most of these reports have been compiled by Agents Smith and Jones!" "Yeah?" "Don't fucking 'Yeah?' me! That's you and Ellie! You're the authority on this agent and you didn't think to mention that?"

He looked at her "I didn't think it was relevant because nothing in those reports gives us any idea about what she's doing here."

"Ugh! You're the most infuriating man I've ever met! I don't know why I want to marry you so bad!"

Casey choked on his food in the back of the van, but Chuck barely spared him a glance as he said "Hopefully because you love me almost as much as I do you?"

She smiled softly at him "Oh yeah, that would be why!" and leaned in to kiss him.

Casey was coughing and swearing in the back and without breaking Chuck's gaze, Sarah said "Stop being a drama queen Casey, if you can swear you aren't choking!"

He finally managed to force out "Well if you bothered looking at the monitor you'd see that our target's leaving!"

Chuck did so then and sure enough, she was running to a sports bike as a stretch limo was pulling away from the front of the restaurant. "Oh shit, so she is!" When she took off, he followed her.

As they were following Mei-Ling's bike, Casey informed them that Ben Lo Pan was in the limo, he was a local big shot who apparently owned half of Chinatown. Chuck and Sarah glanced at each other with guilty smiles, Casey had been doing his homework, and they'd obviously allowed themselves to be more distracted by their moment than they'd realised.

As he drove though, Chuck smiled again "So, will you?" "Will I what?" "Marry me?" "Of course, you Dork!"

There was a snort from the back seat "You are SO dead when Ellie hears how you asked her to marry you!" "Well it's a good thing that no-one's going to tell her, isn't it?" There was silence from the back seat, and when Chuck looked in the mirror, he could see the evil grin on his face "John, you wouldn't!" "Try me! If I don't hear you ask her properly, Ellie finds out!" A look of sorrow came over his face and he quietly said "She deserves better than that Chuck, ask her properly." Chuck solemnly nodded into the mirror at that.

They were still in the Chinatown area when the limo pulled up in front of a building and Lo Pan was helped out and taken inside. Mei-Ling ducked around the corner to park her bike and she was pulling a couple of pistols from the compartment behind the seat on her bike as they pulled up. Casey made a typically non-PC comment about "Glocks and a crotch rocket, my kinda gal", but when Chuck saw the pistols he had an information flash and identified them as Chinese military issue QSW-06s.

He quickly told Sarah and Casey as the PRC military weapons changed things, their use implied that this wasn't a covert mission to get intel as they were more likely to be used for a precise hit, and her obvious target for that would be Lo Pan, given that she was following him. As they watched her climbing a drainpipe up the side of the building, Sarah and Casey agreed that they were duty bound to go in and try to stop the assassination, if that was what it was, and they told Chuck to stay in the van, because the 'civilian' Intersect couldn't be taken into danger, Sarah apologised with a kiss and they went in.

The shit quickly hit the fan inside, they disabled the doorman and got into the private club that Lo Pan had gone to without too much trouble, but when Sarah saw Cho advancing on Lo Pan with her pistols drawn and called out "Gun!" Lo Pan's guards started firing and her and Casey before they did Cho. While they were all engaged in the ensuing firefight, Lo Pan's men got him out of there.

Chuck was in the van, going over the reports again to see whether there was anything in them that may relate to what was currently going on when the doors burst open and Lo Pan was hustled out to the limo. Chuck hopped out of the van, stuffing a Glock 40 into the back of the waistband of his trousers and sauntered towards the limo as quickly as he could without attracting attention. When he was halfway down the block, the doors burst open again and two men hurriedly dragged a third man with a hood over his head out to the limo and threw him into the trunk, slamming it shut and jumping into the back of the limo as it peeled out. When they dragged out the man they tossed in the trunk, Chuck had broken into a run, but as fast as he could go with his long legs he couldn't get get close before the limo left.

He had pulled the 40 out as he ran, but he stopped, swearing as he stuffed the 40 back into his waistband without firing it because as he'd evaluated the potential targets to stop them, he'd realised that there were no targets that could be engaged without placing the guy in the trunk at risk. At that point, Cho Mei-Ling burst out through the door and began firing after the limo, but when Chuck tried to stop her, her attention and guns turned to him, as she demanded to know where they took him.

"Took who?" "My brother, where did they take him?" "Oh, I expect that he was the guy they threw in the trunk, that was why I was trying to stop you from shooting at the car." "Sorry, I have no idea where they took him, I was running up here to try and stop them." At that moment, Sarah and Casey burst of the main entrance behind him, calling out "Federal agents, drop your weapons!" That did nothing to diffuse the situation, if anything, it just put her more on edge.

Deciding that he needed to turn the situation down a few notches, Chuck spoke to her in Chinese. ' _Cho Mei-Ling, you_ _cannot_ _help your brother by getting yourself killed. If you shoot any of us, one of them will kill you, I do_ _no_ _t w_ _ish to see_ _that to happen, and I_ _will be very upset if_ _anything happen_ _s_ _to_ _either of_ _them, but_ _if you_ _lower your weapons,_ _I promise_ _that we will_ _help you rescue your brother._ _'_

She stared at him, shocked that he could speak such fluent Chinese, and that he displayed no fear, looking down the barrels of the two pistols she had pointed at his face as he was. The man was making sense though, she couldn't help Lee if she was dead, and she also recognised the pair behind him, there was no way she could take out both of them before they got her, so she lowered her pistols as he asked.

When she did so, he gave a small bow and held out his hand, saying ' _Please? It will_ _help_ _if you hand_ _over your weapons_ _, they will be returned to you later._ _'_ She nodded, placing the pistols in his hand. He bowed again and said ' _Thank you_ _Cho Mei-Ling_ _._ _'_ Then he turned to the pair behind him and held up Mei-Ling's pistols, so they lowered their weapons, albeit reluctantly, but the look he was getting from Sarah was saying 'We're going to talk about this later!' Chuck heard Mei-Ling murmuring "She is not happy with you!" behind him and he sighed as he shook his head sadly "No, she isn't!"

* * *

They loaded Mei-Ling's bike into the back of the van and headed back to Casey's. At Casey's, Mei-Ling observed the young man who had talked to her, as it was obvious that he was in charge. He spent about fifteen minutes digging up information on the computer while Mei-Ling told her story to them, but he was obviously listening to her as he asked for clarification of a few points as she talked. She also observed the woman, Agent Sarah Walker, who was known as one of the most formidable spies in the Western world, filing away the fact that she was obviously in love with this young man.

They all turned as Chuck swore viciously, seeing him get up and angrily stride away from the computer without a word so, intrigued, they went to see what had upset him. To Mei-Ling's amazement, displayed across the screens was everything about Lee's kidnapping and the Triad's part in it, including their demands to exchange him for a Triad captain being held by the PRC, and the PRC's response that they would not to trade, but Mei-Ling couldn't see what had this, Chuck, so upset until Sarah Walker pointed to one screen and said "That!"

It was a document in Chinese that formally stated that Cho Mei-Ling had disobeyed her orders and was thereby disavowed by the People's Republic of China (she also noted that both of them could read Chinese well enough to understand the document, something not previously known about Agent Walker. Why was a team with two people of this calibre, no, three, Major John Casey was known to be a world class agent as well, buried here in a city within their own borders)?

She looked to Sarah Walker to ask "This is no surprise, I accepted that this would happen when I came after Lee, why does it upset him?", but she shook her head, looking after him as she quietly said "You don't understand, Chuck doesn't think like a spy, he always does the 'right' thing, and to him, burning you just because you're trying to save your brother is most definitely NOT right." Mei-Ling looked at the young man, musing "He is a very strange man, he is as brave and skilled as anyone I've ever met, but he is upset about standard practices like this? I cannot understand him."

At that point, Chuck returned with a drink in his hand. They'd seen him down two already, and this, the third, was almost half gone already. When he returned he started speaking. "We must address two issues, the first is the rescue of your brother, and the second is to safely return him. From that (pointing at the document), you can't return him Mei-Ling, as you'd probably both be shot on sight. The best approach would be for our State department people to return him, saying that he was rescued by our government. The problem is that they'll want some kind of payment to do that, and the most obvious payment they'll ask for is what you know."

"I will not betray my country, if I did that I could never go back!" "Mei-Ling, from that (pointing to the document again) you cannot go back anyway, and this may be the only way to have your brother returned safely. I'm sure you know many things that you could tell them that would not harm your country?" Mei-Ling nodded hesitantly at that. "If you're prepared to do that, we'll do our best to get you put into witness protection so that you can live a comfortable life, here in the United States, afterwards." Mei-Ling looked at the others, and they nodded, assuring her that Chuck could do what he offered, so Mei-Ling looked at Chuck and nodded. "Very well, I will do this." He nodded "Right, now let's work out how to get your brother back!"

It was quickly agreed that the only logical place for Lo Pan to be holding Lee was in his mansion, but Sarah and Casey made it clear that Chuck had to stick with his 'innocent civilian' role, so he would not be part of the team going in. It looked relevantly simple, from what they could see, Sarah, Casey and Mei-Ling would go in, attach remote access devices to the security system wiring so that Chuck could take control of the security cameras, alarm systems and locks, grab Lee and get out again, hopefully before anyone knew that they were there.

Chuck drove the CCE van down the street slowly so that Sarah, Casey and Mei-Ling could jump out without being noticed, parking it out of range of the mansion's security cameras to do his bit. Initially, the incursion went off perfectly, as soon as they got him into the system, he took it over, turning off alarms, unlocking doors and directing them to the guards so that they could take them out quietly. This all changed when all the camera feeds except for the ones that Sarah and Casey were wearing suddenly cut out. Then he saw Sarah and Casey's cameras suddenly cut off as well, recognising the image of boot soles rapidly approaching the cameras before they cut out.

Inside the mansion at that point, Sarah and Casey were praying that Chuck wouldn't come in to try and save them, while Lo Pan gloated to them that Lee was no longer any use as the Chinese government had refused any notion of making a deal for his return, and a disavowed Chinese Agent was of no value either, but the fact that he now had two American spies who he could use to get something out of this, that amused him.

Chuck went into the back of the van to get more weapons, but they'd cleaned them out, obviously to try and stop him from attempting anything if their mission went sideways, so all he had was a Glock 40 with one magazine, certainly not enough to storm the mansion. He was trying to work out what to do when he saw Sarah, Casey, Mei-Ling and Lee being led out of the building and forced into a Bamboo Dragon van. He knew that they'd tell him to leave, especially Sarah, but also knew that they'd understand why there was no way he'd do that while they were in danger, so he followed Bamboo Dragon van to see where they were taking them.

It turned out to be easier than he expected, as the van took them straight to the Bamboo Dragon. The van was left at the front door of the restaurant as they took them inside, but Chuck remembered where the kitchen entrance was, because he'd seen the cooks coming out back when he was twelve or thirteen, so he quietly went around there. Luckily they still had the window in the door to let light in, and he saw Sarah and the others being pushed into the cool room at the back of the kitchen.

Unfortunately, about three quarters of the guards remained in the kitchen after they locked up Sarah, Casey and the others, so he had to find a way get them out of there. He remembered the black market fireworks peddlers who used to hang around Chinatown, and knew he could create a distraction that way, but he confirmed that he could pick the lock on the kitchen door quickly enough for this to work before he went looking for them, once he'd confirmed that, he went hunting.

It wasn't difficult to find people selling fireworks, so he soon had a fair sized bag to work with. Now that he had what he needed Chuck went back to the Bamboo Dragon, and choosing his moment, picked the locks to open all the doors of the Bamboo Dragon van, lit a few of the fuses and deposited the bag in the van before running back around to the kitchen entrance.

As planned, the moment the fireworks in the van went off, all the guards ran straight out the front of the restaurant to see what the commotion was, and Chuck let himself, making a beeline to the cool room to let them out. Unfortunately, someone realised that it WAS a diversion and sent the guards back before they had a chance to get out of the kitchen, so they had eight or nine armed guards to take on.

Chuck pushed Lee down out of harm's way and quietly handed off his Glock 40 to Sarah, then he grabbed a handful of kitchen knives, using them to good effect to make Lo Pan's guards keep their heads down and level the playing field a little. When he saw Lo Pan heading for the door into the restaurant in his wheelchair to get out of there, a heavy cleaver thrown into the crack behind the door from across the kitchen ensured that the door was jammed shut until it was removed. Mei-Ling saw the cleaver bite into the gap, and the look she turned on him was shocked, turning calculating when she realised that Sarah now had a Glock 40 in her hand (she'd heard Sarah shooting, but she'd presumed that she'd somehow managed to hide a backup weapon. There was no way she'd hidden a Glock 40 from the guards though).

They secured Lo Pan and all his people and called for pick up and clean up crews. Chuck and Sarah took Mei-Ling and Lee back to Casey's while Casey waited for the crews to arrive, Casey would have needed to come back here to pick up his beloved Crown Vic anyway, so he had his ride home when he was done. Back at Casey's, they contacted Aunt D to make arrangements for Lee to be delivered to the State Department to return him to the Chinese Consulate.

* * *

The next morning, Mei-Ling made her goodbyes to her brother and Sarah and Casey escorted him to his rendezvous with the State Department people while Chuck stayed with Mei-Ling. The discussion once the others left was interesting.

"Thank you, Chuck, without you and your friends, I could not have saved my brother, I am in your debt."

"It was nothing, don't worry about it."

"You are a strange man Chuck, you put yourself and those you love at risk to save someone who means nothing to you, then you go out of your way to try and make the best arrangement you can for an enemy agent who you have no reason to trust, yet I sense that you have no agenda behind what you are doing. Please understand, when I say that I am in your debt, this is not an empty statement, I am making a commitment to you, if there is ever anything that you need of me, call and I will deliver."

"Thank you Mei-Ling, but it isn't necessary."

The way she looked at him said that she did not agree with him.

"Do your partners know that you are the infamous Agent Smith, and Agent Carmichael?"

"What?…..I'm afraid that I don't know what you're talking about Mei-Ling."

She gave him a look which told him that there was no point in trying to deny it. "Yes, but few people outside of our group do, and I would appreciate it if it stayed that way."

"Chuck, you risked yourself and your woman to save my brother, I would not betray you."

He bowed to her at that.

"How did you know?"

"I didn't at first, but the more I observed you, the more I recognised the patterns of what you do, many people back home, myself included, have studied you and admired your work for years, even though you have caused the People's Republic considerable aggravation from the many times you have interfered with their plans over the years. Your youth was a surprise, has it always been you, or have you assumed the mantle from someone else?"

"No, it was always me, I started fairly young….Mei-Ling, if you meant what you said, would you consider working with my team?"

"That would be impossible, your government would never allow a defector like me work with someone as important as you."

"If I could make it happen, would you were interested in joining the team?"

"I do not believe that that would be possible, but if it were, yes, it would be my honour to be a part of your team."

Chuck nodded "We need to change the arrangements for you then." He brought up the video link with Aunt D.

"Aunt D, we need to cancel the plans that were made for Mei-Ling, she needs to come straight to you to give all her depositions, because once she's done, I want to add her to my team."

"What? Chuck, that's not possible, we can't have a Chinese Agent in our team!"

"Mei-Ling isn't a Chinese Agent any more Aunt D, she was burned by her government for trying to rescue her brother and she's agreed to change sides because of that. As with some of the other additions we've made to our teams, Mei-Ling has a wealth of skills that would enhance our capabilities, so it makes much more sense for us to use them for our benefit, rather than waste her by putting her out to pasture, presuming that they don't renege on the deal and just drop her in a black site somewhere." He glanced at Mei-Ling "She's also worked out that I'm Agents Smith and Carmichael."

That worried her, obviously, but she said "Chuck, I really don't think we can manage this one."

"General, I will be preparing the case for Mei-Ling's new identity and her addition to my team, will I be presenting the case to the relevant authorities via yourself, or will I be presenting it directly?"

Her eyes flashed and he could almost see the steam coming out of her ears. "Don't take that tone with me young man! I'm still your superior officer!"

"I'm sorry Aunt D, but my question remains, who will be presenting it?"

"I'll present it, you know that, but it'll need to be one hell of a case to get through!"

"Thanks Aunt D, I'll try to get the case to you today. I also believe that it would make more sense for Mei-Ling to come back with Carina when she comes to Washington, rather than expose her unnecessarily."

She just nodded tiredly and cut the connection.

Mei-Ling stared at him "If anyone talked to their superior that way in China, they'd be shot!"

Chuck nodded "I'll have to make it up to her, but when she thinks it over it she'll accept that I'm right, and I do have an advantage, as I'm her godson."

When Sarah and Casey came back, Chuck filled them in on the changed plans. Mei-Ling could see that they weren't happy about them, but they were prepared to accept what he'd decided, the fact that top spies like this would accept something of this nature unquestioningly just made this young man more intriguing, his abilities as an intelligence officer were legendary, but it appeared that he was just as accomplished as a leader!

* * *

Chuck arranged for Casey to take Mei-Ling back to the Dungeon and settle her into the apartment with Carina, confirming that he and Sarah would pick up Mei-Ling's things for her on the way.

When they got there, they locked up the offices so that everyone could meet each other. The surprises just kept coming for Mei-Ling, as while it wasn't that much of a surprise to find that Anna spoke Chinese, it was to be addressed in quite good Chinese by Carina and Ellie, for five out of the seven people in this group to be speaking good Chinese when it didn't appear to be focused on China was quite bizarre!

Chuck apologised to her, but said that when they saw that when they saw she only had one small bag, they'd looked inside and picked up more clothes and toiletries for her. She was a little embarrassed about that, but thanked him for being considerate. Carina got quite emotional when he handed her a bag with everything needed to properly change her hair colour back to its original shade of dark brown, in case she decided to follow Aunt D's suggestion. This time Sarah found that it didn't upset her when Carina was hugging and kissing him, because this wasn't Carina playing her games, it was part of the process of wiping out Carina Miller, something that she desperately needed to do!

There was one more thing that Chuck wanted to do before he dove into creating the case to get Mei-Ling asylum and have her added to their organisation, and he retrieved something from the safe in the main bedroom of the apartment while they were there. As they were heading back, he quietly pulled Sarah into the gym and got down on one knee, saying "Samantha Lisja Blake, Sarah Lisa Walker, Katie O'Connell, and any other name you choose to use, will you make me the happiest man alive by agreeing to marry me and spend the rest of our lives together?"

Sarah looked at him "I thought we agreed this last night Chuck?"

He shook his head "No, John was right, you deserved more than that, and I couldn't get the ring until I got back here."

She nodded, with tears in her eyes "Yes Charles Filip Bartol, Charles Philip Carmichael, Charles Irving Bartowski and whatever other name you choose to use, I would love to marry you and spend the rest of our lives together!"

He slipped the ring onto her finger and rose to kiss her. After they'd sealed their pact, she looked at the ring and said in wonder "It fits perfectly!" He laughed quietly "I certainly hope so! It was made just for you." When she had a closer look at it, the understated elegance and design of the ring convinced her of two things. "You designed this ring, didn't you?" He nodded.

"May I see my wedding ring, please?" He nodded again and took the ring box from his pocket. She looked a question at him when she took her wedding ring from the box and he nodded with a smile, taking it from her to slip it into her finger. Just as she knew it would, it fit together with and complemented her engagement ring perfectly, appearing to be one beautiful ring. The two primary stones on the engagement ring were flawless diamonds, the two primary stones on the wedding ring equally flawless sapphires, and the settings for the other minor diamonds and sapphires on the crown gold bands complemented each other as well.

Separate, the rings were beautiful, together, they were perfect, and his wedding band was designed to complement her rings, making a statement that they were a pair. She was in tears when they put their wedding bands back into the ring box and he held her for a while. When they came out, it was obvious from the way that the girls were crying that they'd watched the proposal, which was only confirmed when Ellie rushed up to give them both rib crushing hugs.

* * *

Chuck spent the rest of the afternoon putting together the case to give Mei-Ling a new identity (Mei-Ling Chiang), citizenship and have her added to their team, and called Aunt D to discuss it when he sent it through, she agreed that it appeared almost bullet proof, and promised to take it to the President in the morning.

While they were on the line, she had a proposal about the best way to safely transport Carina and Mei-Ling to Washington. They were getting a lot of noise about having Chuck, and the Intersect, of course, tested by their scientists, so what she was proposing was that, once the President signed off his case to bring Mei-Ling on-board, they organise for that testing to take place at Fort Meade and have Sarah and Casey escort him to Washington for that purpose.

If they did that, they wouldn't have any trouble inserting a couple more female agents into the escort, which would essentially make Carina and Mei-Ling invisible, obviously the safest option for them. Of course, they'd need to also get the orders signed off to get them added to their NSA team etc for that, so Chuck would have to prepare the cases to take to the President for that at the same time. They agreed to present the full case for both of them and Sarah, so Sarah was to be USN Lieutenant Commander Katherine O'Connell, who was a DIA Special Agent, USAF Major Sarah Walker, who was an NSA Special Agent, USA Captain Rebecca Franco, who was an FBI Special Agent, and USMC Captain Jennifer Burton who was an ATF Special Agent, Carina was to be USN Lieutenant Carina Hansen, who was an NSA and FBI Special Agent and USAF Captain Astrid Lundgren, who was a DIA and ATF Special Agent, while Mei-Ling was USN Lieutenant Mei-Ling Chiang, who was an NSA and FBI Special Agent, and USA Captain Fung Lee, who was a DIA and ATF Special Agent. Aunt D had argued that with Sarah's role in the group, she should have a higher rank for dealing with other groups, and Chuck wasn't about to disagree. They'd all have the expected service etc ribbons and medals put into the system, though Sarah and Carina would also be getting many of the medals they'd been recommended for on operations with special forces groups over the years.

Chuck quickly put the documents together and sent them through, explaining that it would take a few days to get Carina's pictures through, as she was changing her hair colour, but as it'd take at least a week or two to organise the testing and set them up in all their roles, that shouldn't be a problem. Aunt D said that all their paperwork and credentials would be sent through in a locked bag on the plane to Major Casey so he could make sure they had what they needed before they got on the plane.

Aunt D wasn't at all happy with her godson when he only remembered to tell her that he and Sarah were engaged as she was about to cut the link. Her reaction when she asked whether they'd at least told Emma first and he just looked at her, stunned, was to fix him with a steely eye and say "Well you better do that right now!" and cut the link.

Chuck hastily called Sarah and they ran over to tell her mother that she'd have a son in law sometime soonish. Emma wasn't in the least upset, just laughing off how contrite they were, but the girls didn't know how to take the fact that this woman who they'd only met a few weeks ago was going to be their stepmother.

As expected, it took two weeks to process everything, and they had to laugh when the travel papers listed Chuck as 'Mr Smith'. Everything went off without a hitch though, Casey gave Carina and Mei-Ling their credentials etc so they boarded the plane as NSA Agents, and in Washington, they organised the duties so that no-one at Fort Meade saw the the female agents that left the plane with Major Casey, Agent Walker and 'Mr Smith', so they had no way of knowing that it was two different female agents who were with the team at Fort Meade.

They went by way of Mary and Stephen's house, as Carina and Mei-Ling would be staying with them during Carina's treatment. Mary was taken aback by the fact that her baby boy was engaged, and Sarah could see what Casey was saying about Stephen, as while he was nice at the start, as soon as he heard that his son was engaged to an agent, he kept muttering about how you couldn't trust agents. Chuck shared a look with his mother at this, and Mary quite understood when he said that they had to go, because quite aside from Stephen's behaviour, they couldn't delay too long without raising questions, so she and Carina gave them hugs and kisses goodbye, and they left with two of Aunt D's trusted agents who were a close match in looks to Carina and Mei-Ling, Agents Prince and White.

Chuck had to put up with being poked and prodded and pushed to the point of having a constant headache for the next few days. While he mightn't have minded so much if he and Sarah could have at least had some private time together though, the only times they could get even close to that, Casey had to be there for appearances, so there was rather a limit to how far they could go. Sarah was also upset about the fact that she couldn't wear her engagement ring while they were there, and that she was back to being hit on by the Agents and military men on the base constantly, to the point that Casey put a few heads into walls to make them stop screwing with his partner.

They were all quite relieved when the testing was done and they were out of there, in fact the only things that they really missed when they left was that Sarah was wishing that Carina was coming back with them, and Casey was wishing that he didn't have to leave Sydney, as they'd had a good time catching up most nights.

All in all though, they breathed a collective sigh of relief when the C-37A lifted off from Andrews AFB and they were on their way home to Los Angeles.

* * *

 **A/N: Yes, I have Sydney and Alexis changing sides, like 'Mr Colt', the actresses playing them seem genuinely nice, so they never fit the evil bitch roles to me, and they are a close match to the size and build of Carina and Mei-Ling,**


	8. It Could Have Been Me

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this isn't the real world.**

* * *

They were learning the meaning of the term 'victim of your own success', because they just couldn't keep up with the workloads of 'their' DIA, NSA, Cyber Command and other groups, plus the Intersect Project, plus the CCE, and now LSS workloads. When they'd created the cover companies, using the branding of the two companies on all their vehicles etc had seemed to be good business practice, seeing as how they were supposedly two sides of the same organisation, but the problem was that that led to people asking questions about Lotus Security Systems.

These questions led more and more to them needing to install and maintain security systems for their CCE customers, and escalating workloads. Quite aside from that, the Intersect was also escalating 'their' groups' workloads, as much of the information that Chuck was getting from it was too sensitive to expose to Graham and the greater intelligence community, so they had to deal with it 'under the covers'.

After watching this for a while, Aunt D decided to do something about it, and talked to Chuck, Ellie, Casey and Sarah about bringing more people in. Aunt D had a number of excellent officers and agents who had little visibility in the intelligence community, and after some debate, five of them were selected to join the team, as the staff of the LSS side of the business. When they'd agreed to join, Chuck went into the systems and buried their official records, and Aunt D put them on a C-37A, headed for Los Angeles.

The new 'LSS staff' were USMC Lieutenant Colonel Michael Colt, USAF Major Sydney Prince, USA Major Alexandra Forest, USA Captain Richard Noble, USAF Captain Victoria Dunwoody, and USN Lieutenant Mei-Ling Chiang returned to the team as well. Carina was upset that she was not returning with them, but accepted that while she was making progress with her issues, she still had a ways to go. All of them had DIA, NSA, FBI and ATF identities, and Mike and Rick were also Deputy U.S. Marshals like Chuck and Casey.

Mike Colt was made the manager for the Los Angeles LSS office, but he was confused and concerned about the way Chuck curtly said "No!" and walked off when he laughingly said "Just call me Big Mike". Anna nudged him, and when he leant down whispered "It's not you, I'll tell you later!" Anna appeared to have her own issues though, as she glared at Sydney, Alex and Vicky, and stalked off, muttering something about 'tall bitches'.

The new people were looking at each other, wondering what they'd gotten themselves into, when Chuck suddenly reappeared to apologise to Mike, explaining how he'd been stuck in a shit cover job for five years, working for an idiot who insisted on being called 'Big Mike', and how just the mention of that name made him angry now. Mike nodded at that, saying "Let's just make it Mike then!" with a smile, and Chuck matched his nod and smile.

Vicky spoke up then "Sir?" "Chuck, please!" She nodded "Chuck, do you know why Lieutenant Wu appears to have an issue with us? She just glared at us and stormed off, muttering something."

Chuck snorted at that "Do you have a mirror Vicky?"

"Of course, what's that got to do with anything?"

"In case you haven't noticed, Anna is well, petite, and in my experience short women can be intimidated by beautiful women with miles of legs."

Vicky blushed at that and Mei-Ling added quietly "Especially when the one they're smitten with has recently become engaged to one of those women."

Chuck nodded sadly, but addressed Vicky "It's not personal Vicky, give her time and she'll come around." She nodded at that.

One of the obvious issues that came up when the decision to move others out to help with the load was accommodation, and that led to some creative solutions on Chuck's part. Ever since he'd bought the block that held Quixote House and the CCE building, he'd been making plans and designs for what he'd like to do with Quixote house, and most of those plans had the upper levels being made into apartments. This would be perfect for the new people, and Anna and Jeff, and the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that he could come up with viable and believable arguments for Ellie, Casey, him and hopefully Sarah as well, to move in.

To this end, they got the NSA contractors in again, to start converting the top two levels into two or three bedroom apartments, and while they were doing that, the new people were put up in serviced one and two bedroom apartments.

* * *

It was while the 'LSS' team was settling in that the Intersect team was called to a briefing with Graham WITHOUT the General. Graham didn't waste any time, jumping into it. "A high value CIA asset, Laszlo Mahnovski, has gone rogue and escaped from a facility just outside of L.A. after killing his handlers." He brought up pictures of Mahnovski and and the dead handlers. "This asset is a top priority, he must be recovered and returned to CIA custody immediately without harm! This takes precedence over all other assignments!"

When Graham said that they weren't to tell the General about this, Casey went to tell him that he didn't have the authority to assign them requirements like this without the General, but caught Chuck's signal telling him to stop, so he changed it to a grudging "Yes, Sir", but he turned on Chuck to demand to know why they hadn't shut Graham down the moment the link was cut. Chuck held up a finger for him to wait and dug up Laszlo Mahnovski's records, throwing them up on screen as he did so. When he was done, the silence was only broken by Casey's "Chuck me!"

What they showed was frightening to Sarah, and Casey, as what had happened to him could very well have happened to Chuck under slightly different circumstances. Laszlo was a genius, at Chuck's level if not above in scientific areas though he didn't seem to have Chuck's range. When he was eleven, a CIA recruiter who was trolling for prospects in their late teens had discovered him in an arcade parlour and talked his parents into signing control of him over to the CIA's people, convincing them that they could give him what he needed to make the most of himself.

Laszlo earned his degrees at fourteen, and his Ph D at seventeen, but he hadn't seen the outside world since then. The CIA was using him like they had Stefan to create whatever technology they wanted, and they'd kept him locked away in an underground bunker without any access to the outside world to do that. He never saw anyone other than his handlers and the CIA agents in the facility where he was, and from the reports, this had driven him more than a little crazy. They had get to him before the CIA did and rescue him.

Of course, that meant that they had to find Laszlo first, and he was doing a very good job of avoiding that. While they were faced by the same challenge as Graham's minions, though, they did have a very big advantage over them, because Chuck, Anna and Jeff didn't think like spies, they thought like nerds. It only took an hour or so for Chuck to work out where Laszlo would be, and then the main question was how to bring him in quietly.

Chuck was alone as he cruised the arcade parlours on the Santa Monica Pier looking for Laszlo, because either Sarah or Casey turning up in this world would have given the game away, Casey looked like a cop, and Sarah was just too beautiful for Nerdland. This was the last place Laszlo had been before the CIA got their hands on him and finished his life when he was eleven, so Chuck was certain that he'd be here somewhere, he just had to find him and get him away before the CIA realised it.

It didn't take more than twenty minutes to locate Laszlo, manoeuvre him into a corner where they wouldn't be seen and stick a modified tranq dart into him (this one mainly took away his control of his motor functions). Chuck altered Laszlo's appearance and walked him out, he was largely supporting him, but managed to make it look like he was just helping a buddy who was under the weather. Just as they got to the curb, the van pulled up, they were hauled in by Casey and they were on their way inside fifteen seconds.

On the way back to Glendale, Chuck was explaining to Laszlo what was going on and what they were doing. Starting out with "You know that the CIA's looking for you, but don't worry, we're not the CIA" initially made it worse, but he settled down as he watched and realised that this wasn't a typical setup, especially Chuck and Sarah. She was an agent, that was obvious, but the way he went to sit on the floor behind the driver's seat so that they could hold hands as she drove, and the way they were holding hands, that wasn't in any of the CIA playbooks, and when he looked at her to see how long it would take her to start giving him the eye behind this guy's back, she looked pissed, so pissed that he thought she was going to pull over and hit him.

By the time they got back to Glendale, Chuck was looking pissed too, and he just told Casey to take him down to the Apartment and watch him while he spent some time with Sarah. When Chuck came into the Apartment, he looked even more angry, he told Casey to get out and jammed the needle for the antidote into Laszlo's arm hard enough to leave a serious bruise. When Laszlo came out of it, Chuck tersely told him that he'd be staying here overnight and he'd be flown back east in the morning. He turned to leave but stopped, turning back to say "In the meantime, stay the fuck away from me and my fiancé!"

When Laszlo sniggered at that, he suddenly found himself hauled up to look Chuck in the eye, so that he had to go up on tiptoe "What's so fucking funny about that?" Laszlo felt sorry for this guy, he actually cared for the Agent, the one who was probably calling in his location right now.

"Sorry man, but she's working you, the facility they had me was a research and training facility, and the library didn't have anything but texts and the Agents' playbooks. I got bored after I'd read all the texts, so I started reading their playbooks, and I've got a perfect memory so it's all up here (tapping his temple). The only fun I've been able to have was screwing with them, using their own rules. My classification makes me a top priority asset, so their rule one five seven two two six seven seven eight B states that if I show interest in them, they're expected to do whatever it takes to make me happy. I'd look at them like I'm interested and let them make complete fools of themselves before I told them that I was only screwing with them, like I said, it was the only fun I had in there."

Chuck let Laszlo go as the door suddenly opened and Sarah came in, ignoring Laszlo she said to Chuck "He's right Baby, that's the instruction for the rule he mentioned, but I usually got out of that crap by being the Enforcer." She did turn to Laszlo then, and her hand moved too fast to see as she slapped him hard enough to put him on his knees "That's for trying to play your game on me and pissing me off!"

When he struggled to his feet and tried to say something though, she kicked him in the family jewels, HARD, so he curled up on the floor in agony "And THAT's for telling my fiancé that I was just working him you bastard!" When he was capable of speech, Laszlo gasped out "It's, it's real? How is that possible? They'd destroy you if they found out!"

"That's why they aren't going to find out until they can't do anything about it! YES, it's fucking real, and I'll take care of anyone who tries to come between us!"

Upstairs, where they were watching this in the office, and Anna went white as Casey looked at her, saying "I told you, now will you back off before you get yourself hurt? In the fourteen years that I've known him, she's been the only one for him, no matter who threw themselves at him, and there were a lot of famous women on that list. Lots of them found their way into his bed, but none of them got into his heart, and since she's arrived, it's been obvious that she feels the same way." Anna looked at Jeff and he nodded "He's right, you've got Chuck's friendship, unless you do something to screw it up, but she's the only one who'll ever have him." Anna nodded, with tears in her eyes, she couldn't handle the idea of losing his friendship, they were BFFs, so she'd have to try and give up on the infatuation she'd had for him ever since she met him over five years ago.

Down in the Apartment, Laszlo gasped out "I'm sorry, I didn't think that what I was seeing could be real, I just thought she was an incredible actress!" Chuck helped Laszlo off the floor and into a seat "She is that, but what we have is very real, that's why I was only a heartbeat away from doing the same thing to you, if not more, when she came in." He looked up when Sarah tapped him on the arm, to see her holding out a bag of frozen peas to him with a contrite expression. He grinned ruefully as he remembered his own experience with this from the night she arrived and handed it to Laszlo to apply to the damaged area.

Sarah addressed Laszlo then "I'm not going to apologise for that, because you had it coming, but I'd like to put all of this behind us, if you can?"

Laszlo nodded "Yes, like you said, I had it coming because of what I said and did, it's just, I've been in a CIA facility for most of my life and everyone around me has lived by the CIA rulebooks, so the idea of people having anything real was alien to me."

Sarah nodded, and she and Chuck sat on the couch facing Laszlo, holding hands, as Chuck explained the plan to him. One of the first things he brought up was that the name Laszlo Mahnovski was too distinctive, so they had to change it, and Leslie Mahoney was the closest phonetic match that they could find which wouldn't stand out. Laszlo tried the sound of that on the tongue a couple of times and nodded, that shouldn't be too hard. Chuck was hesitant about bringing up the next point, that he needed therapy to enable him to deal with the real world, but Laszlo cut him off as he tiptoed around the subject "Chuck, it's alright, I know that I'm screwed up and I need help, I'm not so far gone that I can't see that."

Chuck nodded, relieved "Well the psychiatrist that you'll be seeing has helped most of my family quite a bit over the years, my father's still seeing him due to the damage he and the CIA did to him, we have another friend who's seeing him as well because of what the CIA did to her, Dr Dreyfus is good, if anyone can help you, he can." He reached over to gently wipe away the tears that appeared on Sarah's cheeks at the mention of Carina and continued. "Our people will be sending a plane and an escort to take you back east in the morning to get started on the way back from this, you'll be staying here until then. Please don't screw around with our systems while you're here, they're protecting people that are very dear to us and if you do anything to endanger them, well at the very least you'll lose my trust."

Laszlo, no, Leslie, nodded at that and asked "What will happen after all this?" Chuck hesitated before he responded "We weren't going to discuss this until you'd had a chance to deal with the last sixteen years, but after that, the plan is to offer you a choice, either work with my father, who was pretty much doing what you were for the CIA up until fourteen years ago, for the Defense Intelligence Agency on projects that you will be allowed to refuse if you object to them..." He stopped to look at him "and I can guarantee that, as I'm in charge of that group, or you can go into the Witness Protection scheme. Personally, I seriously doubt that Witsec would be a satisfying life for you, but the choice will be your's."

Leslie nodded again "You're probably right about that, I'll let you know when I've looked at the options." It was his turn to stop now "You're the one! The whole time I was working for the CIA, they were pushing me to give them the technology that the DIA and NSA had, that was you!" Chuck nodded "Well, a large part of that was my father, but it was our group, yeah." Leslie's eyes gleamed "Oh, this is going to be interesting!" Chuck grinned at that "Yeah, I dare say it will be!" With that, they left him to deal with his wounded, pride, and went upstairs, as they had plenty of work to do.

First thing in the morning, they took two of the minivans out to the airport with most of the team for protection to meet the C-37A that Aunt D sent. The door on the jet opened and Carina bounded out almost before it stopped, greeting Sarah, then Chuck, then Casey and Mei-Ling with hugs and a kisses. Mike, Vick, Alex and Rick were bemused by this, but Sydney had already seen it in Washington, so she knew to expect it, she also got a greeting from Carina, but her's was just a friendly "Hello Sydney." Agent White, Alexis, was much more restrained when she exited the plane.

Even though Chuck knew that Carina was missing them, especially Sarah, he had to cut this short as he didn't want to risk anyone with connections to the CIA seeing them, so he took Carina and Alexis to the minivan where Leslie was waiting and introduced them to him as his escorts, they all said their goodbyes, then Carina and Alexis hustled Leslie onto the plane and they took off.

They went back to the office and got back to work, and over the next week or so, Sarah reported to Graham a number of times that they hadn't found any leads to Mahnovski, asking what they were supposed to tell General Beckman, because she kept asking what was taking up their time as the Intersect Project assignments were falling behind. Eventually he told her to drop the search for Mahnovski, because no-one was seeing any sign of him, so he'd probably already left Los Angeles.

* * *

They didn't get anything in the way of serious missions for the Intersect Project over the next few months, so they managed to catch up on the backlog of CCE/LSS, Intersect Project and their DIA, NSA, DCS, FBI and Cyber Command groups' work.

With the rise of the LSS side of the business, they were changing the direction of the business, and they realised that this was what they wanted to do, rather than just doing much the same thing as they had at the Buy More like they did at the start. When they were asked about LSS, they'd told people that it was computer and communications technology AND physical security, rather than the physical security systems that they'd been thinking of when they came up with the name, and that meant that they were delving into work that they could get their teeth into, rather than just make-work for a cover business. While it was more of a stretch for them, even Casey, Sarah and the other agents were enjoying the more challenging work they had with this.

These changes prompted them to start making longer term plans, laying the framework for a new business that could incorporate this and extend it once they'd managed to get away from Graham and the CIA. There was some argument over the name of this new business, as Chuck was up against the rest of the core team when he objected to Anna's suggestion that Piranha projected the best image for the new company, especially with anyone who knew about the Piranha. Chuck tried to argue that they couldn't call it Piranha, as that didn't project the right business image, and shot down Jeff's suggestion of 'Piranha Security' for the same reason, but they knew that they had him when Sarah came up with 'Piranha Security & Technology' because he couldn't come up with an argument to shoot it down.

It wasn't just because it was her suggestion, it was more because fitted perfectly into what they'd been discussing about what they wanted to do with this new company, so when he nodded in resignation, Anna and Sarah hugged each other, after all, beating Chuck in any argument was a fairly big achievement, the way he normally came in with all angles covered. When 'Uncle Roan' asked if he may do something to create a suitable image for the people behind this business interest, Chuck hesitantly agreed, unsure about what he was getting himself into, but knowing that Roan was the master of this and he'd never steered him wrong when he'd asked for advice in his area of expertise.

During this time, half of the apartments on the upper levels were finished, and Jeff, Anna, Mei-Ling, Mike, Sydney, Alex, Vicky and Rick moved in.

* * *

Their quiet period finished when Chuck got a panicked phone call early one morning from Lou, someone he'd known from high school, and who he'd helped with her various technology crises over the years. Her phone had died and she was having a total meltdown, she'd gone to the Buy More but he wasn't there, and when she was trying to explain that her whole life was in this phone, the sleazy Indian who was at the Nerd Herd counter and that little bearded guy who'd always been hanging around him just kept trying to suggest that they could help her 'other ways', so she'd left. She told him that that tall skinny guy with the red afro "Skip?" "Yeah, I guess, anyway, he caught me in the car park and gave me your number so I could call you."

He got her to describe what happened, what phone she had, and how to find her shop, then he told her he'd see her in a bit and went to get the gear together. When he explained how he knew Lou, Sarah asked "Did you?…." but he cut her off "No, we were friends and I helped her out when her computer or whatever died, that's all." She nodded at that, and he gave her a hug and a kiss before he left.

It didn't take him long to resurrect her phone in her sandwich shop, but as she was thanking him afterwards, he flashed on a nightclub flyer up on the board behind her. When he asked about it, she ripped it down, explaining that the club belonged to her ex, she was trying to get it through to him that they were done but he just wouldn't take the hint, she'd forgotten the flyer was still there.

As soon as he got back to the office, he brought up a link to Aunt D and told her about his flash, the owner of the club was Stavros Demetrios, who worked with his father Yari Demetrios, the arms trafficker. Aunt D swore when he said that, as there was chatter about the Demetrios family being the ones who were moving something serious into Los Angeles. No-one knew exactly what it was, but the general impression was that it was some kind of WMD or biological weapon.

They dropped everything and tried to get intel on what the Demetrioses were doing, but it looked like Yari was too old school to do anything electronically, so they'd have to find a way to bug Stavros to get the intel on what they were doing. Aunt D looked genuinely apologetic as she told Chuck that he'd have to use Lou to get into Stavros's club and plant the bugs where they could monitor communications between him and his father. Chuck argued with this, and he was shocked when Sarah resignedly said "No, she's right Chuck, it has to be you, you're the only one who can do this." He looked her in the eye and asked without words whether she really wanted him to do this, her response was "No, of course not! But this is serious and you need to!" At that he drew her into his arms as he said "Alright Aunt D, I'll do it."

They brought Graham into the link then to fill him in on what they'd 'just discovered' and he immediately insisted that he engage Lou romantically to get them the intel they needed. Chuck put up a token resistance and then gave in, and Sarah said that she'd coach him through the basic steps to do the job.

As it was just past lunch, Chuck went back to Lou's sandwich shop, explaining that the others had abused him when they found out that he'd gone to a sandwich shop and hadn't brought any food back, so they'd sent him back with their lunch orders. Lou laughed at that, and as she was making the sandwiches he casually said "I was thinking about what you said about your ex, you know what the best way to get it through to him that you're done with him would be?" Lou glanced up at him "No, what?" "Go to his club with me and put on a good show."

She stopped what she was doing, furious "Chuck, I like you, I really do, but I'm not going to be another fucking notch on your bedpost! Fuck! I thought you'd stopped that shit after high school!" "Lou, stop! I did! That isn't what this is about! I'm not trying to get you into bed! But I know guys like Yari, and the only way you're going to convince him that you're over him is to convince him that you're happy with someone else, whether it's me or someone else."

She looked at him, still angry but coming to accept that his argument was logical as she was finishing their sandwiches. Eventually she agreed as she was wrapping them up, and asked when they were going to do this? "It'd probably be better to just rip the bandaid off, how about tonight?" She thought about that for a bit and nodded, so he arranged to pick her up at her place at 8:00.

Back at Echo Park after work, Chuck spent a couple of hours making up for the fact that he was going out to work another woman that night to his fiancé and then got ready to go out. He'd accepted the tailored Armani suit and matching Italian shoes that Aunt D sent for him, as Sarah really liked the way he looked in them, but sent the Ferrari that Graham had sent back, pointing out that he could get away with claiming that the suit etc were gifts from an ex-girlfriend, but there was no way he could explain a Ferrari with his lifestyle.

As a result, he was driving Ellie's car when he turned up to pick up Lou, she gave him a suspicious look when he have her the 'gifts from a girlfriend' explanation for the suit, not because she doubted that, as she'd seen what girls who'd slept with him or wanted to sleep with him would do for him back at high school, but rather because it seemed to confirm her earlier suspicion that he was still doing that.

* * *

When they got to the club, she baulked and wanted to back out of it, but Sarah was watching in amazement from the van as he talked her into willing submission with a few words and apparently innocent touches, THAT was something he was going to have to explain after he was done with this! As soon as they got inside, Stavros spotted Lou and insisted that they come up to the 'owner's lounge', as he liked to call it, so he could try to show up Chuck and impress her. The location was perfect, as this was obviously where he spent all his time in here and Chuck had no trouble planting the bugs and cameras to catch whatever was said. The issue was getting away once he'd done that, as Stavros insisted on keeping them there in an attempt to impress Lou. To make it worse, Lou was embarrassed about how short the dress she'd worn to make a statement was, because of the looks she got from Stavros and other guys, so when Chuck tried suggesting that they go dancing, she said no.

The main problem was that they wouldn't get anything useful from Stavros as long as Chuck and Lou were there, because he wouldn't talk about anything serious in front of them. It was obvious that they had to get them out of there, and Sarah was swearing because she hadn't catered for this contingency, so she hadn't brought any clothes with her. "I don't suppose we have anything in the van that would work, do we?" Anna hesitated "Well I brought along some clothes as I was thinking about going clubbing when this was done, but the dress wouldn't fit you, it's small on me!" Sarah looked again at the scene in the club and said "Let's see it!"

The dress was indeed small, but that could help the effect, she turned to Casey and he nodded "I'll get out so you can get changed." "No, well yes, that would be appreciated, but could you get me the black heels I have in the front of the Porsche, please?" He nodded again and caught the keys she threw him as he got out. When she got the dress on, it almost certainly breached nearly every public indecency law in the country, but that would just help with what she had to do.

When she pulled up to the front door of the club, she sinuously wound her way out of the Porsche, threw the keys to the valet without a word and walked straight past everyone waiting to go in, and no-one said a word. Once inside, every eye in the place was on her as she made a show of looking around and then strode straight across the dance floor to the 'owner's lounge' with the dancers parting to get out of her way, when she was standing below the 'owner's lounge', she spoke for the first time since she pulled up, her voice somehow cutting through the music "What happened to what you told me about loving me forever, was that just another lie? I've only been gone for three days and you've already moved on to some other tart? And you're wearing the suit I bought you!"

Chuck leaned over the rail as he shouted back at her "I was supposed to wait around for you when you told me that you'd had enough and you were going to find someone who treated you properly? How does that work in your head?"

"I know I was angry when I left, but you told me FOREVER, and it's only been three fucking days!"

"You gave up and left, why shouldn't I go out with someone else?" At that point, Lou's drink was thrown at Chuck's head, glass and all, and she jumped up, calling him a bastard and telling him to go back to that bitch because she never wanted to see him again, then she stormed out. Chuck jumped up and went to follow her, but was stopped by Sarah when he reached the dance floor, he wasn't sure that her words "You're not going anywhere without me!" or the searing kiss she laid on him were meant for the rest of the club, or the recording, but he wasn't arguing when she grabbed his hand and led him across the dance floor and out of the club. As they came out the front door she waved to the valet and her Porsche was brought up. After she'd slid lithely into the driver's seat, she looked at Chuck until he clambered a little less gracefully into the passenger seat and she pulled away.

* * *

They went around the block and came back to where the van was, and Sarah looked at Casey as she got in and he nodded, hopping out so she could get changed. When she'd changed back into her own clothes, she thanked Anna for loan of the dress and told her she'd get it cleaned, but Anna just snapped "Don't bother! There's no way I'm ever wearing that fucking thing again after I've seen the way you look in it!" Sarah had to smile as she hugged her and said "Well how about we buy you a new one then?" Anna nodded at that and managed to dredge up a smile.

When they'd called Casey back in though, it was question and answer time "How the hell did you control her like that Chuck? I've only seen a handful of people who could do anything like that and they were the very best!" Chuck mumbled something and she asked "What?" "Uncle Roan, OK? I started going through puberty after Mom left, Dad wasn't there, even when he was, I wasn't going to ask Ellie or Auntie Di or Auntie Em about it, and Uncle Bry was a hero, not a ladies' man, but I'd heard Mom and Auntie Di and Auntie Em talking about Uncle Roan, so I knew he was! So I called him and asked what was going on with me, he explained and told me how to treat girls, when I tried it at school, it worked, so I kept practising, it was part of what I did when I was going through my wild period." Sarah just looked stunned at first, but the smile she gave him as she started to say "Well I expect to get a demonstration.." had Casey and Anna calling out "STOP!" and she blushed, as she'd forgotten they were there.

They thought that the night was a wash as they weren't getting anything from Stavros other than listening to him try to impress women with how important he was, and Anna and Sarah getting ashamed for their gender because of the number of women who seemed to be falling for his crap. This was just making Chuck feel more and more guilty about what he'd done to Lou to get the bugs in there when Stavros took a call from his father, and from what they were hearing from his end, it sounded like the shipment they were after.

"Yes Papa, Dock 23B warehouse at 10:30 tomorrow, we'll be there, I will not let you down Papa!"

While it was by no means certain that this was the shipment the chatter was about, it sounded important, and there was no chatter about them moving anything else important at the moment, so they laid on the requisite strike teams and bomb disposal teams for the following morning.

They were in place with the support teams in a nearby parking garage before dawn to prevent anyone being tipped off by their arrival, and Mike, Sydney, Alex, Vicky, Rick and Mei-Ling were there as part of the strike and bomb teams. Mike and the others were starting to understand why they had the FBI and ATF identities when they saw how easy it was to just add their names to the roster for the operation.

The cameras they'd placed the night before showed Yari and Stavros Demetrios arriving with an escort at 10:20, so they quietly took out the guards at the gate and moved in once they'd entered the building. Their strike teams breached the building at 10:30, but were surprised by what they found, as they obviously weren't the only ones who'd snuck forces in the night before. They were met by a superior force who were heavily armed, and the firefight that broke out as soon as the FBI and CIA SAD strike teams' vans entered the building was intense!

Sarah had to tell Chuck to 'stay in the van' because with the FBI and CIA teams there, he couldn't be seen to be handling a weapon, let alone showing that he knew how to use one, but when he saw Stavros take off at a run, Chuck went after him, as the ONLY things that were in this building were the forces that were fighting it out with their teams, the shipment, whatever it was, wasn't there, so there was a good chance that Stavros was going to set off whatever it was.

Sarah saw Chuck leaving the FBI van to go after Stavros, so she took off after him, as they couldn't give him a weapon in front of the others when he was supposed to be nothing but a technical consultant, so she knew that he was unarmed!

When Chuck rounded the corner of the warehouse, he could see Stavros a ways in front of him, but thought that the roundabout path he was taking was the route, rather than evading pursuit, so he was surprised when he charged into the building after him to find nothing in front of him, as Stavros had ducked to one side, drawing a pistol. Chuck dove out of the way as he fired and was coming up to engage him when Stavros's attempts to track him with the pistol were suddenly stopped by Sarah blowing the top of his head off. They embraced in relief, but their moment was finished when Sarah said "Oh FUCK!" in an appalled voice, looking over his shoulder. Chuck turned to see what she was looking at, and echoed the sentiment in a slightly less emphatic voice.

Standing in the middle of this warehouse, and obviously what Stavros was heading for, was a massive crate, at least ten to twelve feet long and six or seven feet across and high. It didn't take them but a moment to decide that they needed to see what was inside, because if it was a bomb, that size, it'd level one hell of an area.

They quickly prised one side off the crate, but what they saw when they did just caused a repeat of their expletives, because it was about ten feet long and six feet across and high, and it had a timer that was already displaying less than thirty seconds on the clock, it certainly looked like a massive bomb that was about to go off! There was no time to get the bomb guys in, so they ripped the timer off as quickly as they could, in hope of finding the wiring that they needed to disable it, but what they saw was like nothing either of them had ever seen before, and the Intersect had nothing to offer either.

When the timer hit five seconds they gave up and threw themselves into each other's arms, determined to make their last moments count. After more than a minute had passed though, they realised that there was no way that the moment could have stretched five seconds out quite this far, maybe for a first kiss, but not a last kiss, so they looked at the timer, to find it flashing 00:00. They almost collapsed from the relief, and then Sarah called Casey to bring the bomb disposal team to her location as the bomb hadn't gone off. When Casey asked if she knew where Chuck was, she just said "He's here with me."

She collapsed into Chuck's arms again until they heard people running towards them, and she pushed Chuck behind the crate as she drew her pistol, only lowering it when Casey ran through the door. The bomb disposal team couldn't do anything that Chuck and Sarah hadn't already done, so they sent off for extra equipment and Chuck, Sarah and Casey left. They looked at Sydney as they left, as she was assigned to this team, and she gave them a subtle nod, she'd keep an eye on things.

* * *

About four hours later, Sarah and Casey got a call to say that the bomb team were sure that they were getting close to cracking this thing, so they went back. When they arrived, the leader of the team told them that they were just about certain that this wasn't a bomb of any kind, and that they believed that it may be some sort of bio-med container, so they'd brought a medical team in. It took them another twenty minutes, but they finally cracked the code and the container opened to reveal a human form, a man, Bryce Fucking Larkin! The medical team quickly checked him over and said that his vital signs were strong, so they transferred him to an ambulance to get him to the nearest secure medical facility.

Two hours later he was conscious, but refusing to speak to anyone but Chuck, so Sarah went to collect him. After crying angrily in his arms, they called Aunt D to ask how this bastard was alive after Casey shot and killed him? Casey had checked and confirmed that he was dead before they took the body away! Aunt D didn't have any answers, so obviously the only way they'd get them would be for Chuck to do what he wanted, and go talk to him.

At the hospital, the medical team around the bed that Larkin was strapped to were told to step back out of earshot as Chuck approached, but Larkin would only speak in Klingon. Really, after all his shit, he was trying to prove his fuckin' nerd cred? Chuck refused to answer in anything but English, but after five or six times he was beginning to think that Larkin may be so brain damaged that he only recognised Klingon, so he answered in Klingon. Then he found that the bastard was brain damaged alright, he'd have to be to think that they were buddies after what he'd done, but he spoke English well enough, laughing and telling him that his Klingon was rusty.

He started whispering then, and while Chuck didn't want to get any closer, he reasoned that as Larkin was restrained, it'd be OK. Big mistake, as Larkin popped the restraint that had been undone on the other side of the bed, grabbed the injector gun that had been left there for him and pressed it into Chuck's neck, making Chuck release the other restraint, and Chuck couldn't do a thing about it as they had too many observers there. Larkin couldn't see Chuck's face as he was behind him, holding the injector to his neck, so Chuck didn't need to cover up his anger as he looked at Casey. Casey nodded grimly, he'd find out who undid the restraint and left the injector gun and deal with them.

Larkin demanded that everyone get out of the room and then used Chuck as a human shield as they came out of the room, edging back to the elevator behind them and demanding that someone give him the code to operate the elevator. When no-one answered he started to pull the trigger until Sarah told him, the last thing Chuck saw as the doors closed was Sarah's terrified expression. When Larkin took the injector's needle out of his neck, Chuck REALLY wanted to do something to this bastard, but he could see the active camera taking in everything that was happening, so he still had to hold off. When Larkin said "How did you survive? The only reason that they'd be here with you is if you downloaded it, but no-one's survived that!" Chuck looked up at the camera and Larkin still had his faculties enough to recognise what he was saying, so he just said a code name, and Chuck responded with the salient points. As the elevator was nearing the bottom, Larkin said "Well, I'll be seeing you Chuck!" and stuck the needle into his arm, pulling the trigger.

* * *

Things were quiet for the next couple of days, there was no news on the hunt for Bryce, and they quietly stepped up security measures for when he came back. Thanksgiving came, and Ellie insisted on having everyone to Thanksgiving dinner, at least there was no Devon or Morgan this year. When Chuck ran out to the car to get something that he'd left there though, he was ambushed by Bryce coming out of the shadows. If he'd been further out of the complex, Chuck could have taken him on, but where they were was covered by the cameras that the NSA and CIA were watching. Bryce was the same arrogant prick that he'd always been, taunting Chuck about what a loser he was, living with his sister, and telling him that he needed to speak to Sarah. When Chuck refused, Bryce said that he had to talk to her about the assignment that he was on, because she was the only one who could confirm that he was legitimate and get him access to Graham, anyone else would kill him. Chuck had to concede in his head that he'd certainly like to kill him, but decided that they had to deal with him properly, so he slipped in, locked things down in his room and let him in via the window.

Back in the living room, he called Aunt D to appraise her of the situation, she brought up the cameras for his room and informed them that Larkin had climbed up above the door. They regrettably agreed that they'd need to see what Graham's involvement in this was, so Sarah would have to see what he wanted. After an earth shattering kiss that left Mike and the others stunned, Sarah said "Oh yeah, didn't we mention that? We're engaged, and he's VERY private property!" and headed to Chuck's room.

They brought the feed up on the screen in the living room, so they saw Sarah's very credible acting job of being surprised when she turned to see Bryce smirking at her, as usual certain that he was in total control of the situation. She looked at him and asked "Why should I talk to you?" His smirk widened as he said "Because I'm not a rogue spy, because the Intersect was a mission, because, Sarah, you're still in love with me."

With that he moved towards her, reaching out to pull her face to him, but got a rude shock when he was suddenly face down in the carpet with his arm reefed up behind him. Sarah reached around behind her with her free hand to get her phone, pretending to text Chuck as she smirked at the camera, she'd enjoyed that! About a minute later Chuck and Casey slipped into the room and closed the door, Casey smirking down at Bryce and holding a pair of handcuffs out to Sarah, who took them with a quick "Thanks".

Once Sarah had cuffed Bryce, they made a show of checking that the coast was clear and hustled Bryce over to Casey's apartment, dumping him into a chair and telling him to talk. He was still playing his games, saying that he couldn't talk to them, so Sarah turned to Casey saying "He's all your's Casey", as she reached out to grab Chuck's hand and head for the door. Bryce's eyes were fixed on their joined hands as he blurted out "Sand Wall", Chuck stopped as he flashed, and then looked at Sarah and Casey as he told them what Sand Wall was. Casey grunted in disappointment and pulled Bryce to his feet to remove the handcuffs.

Once he'd freed Bryce, Casey took him upstairs to initiate a link to Graham, leaving him there for a debriefing and came back downstairs. About half an hour later, Bryce came downstairs, saying that he had his next assignment "I'm going after Fulcrum, on my own, off the radar", looking at Sarah as he said this, obviously believing that there was no way that she could resist joining him.

Casey made a show of moaning in pleasure and envy as this was the type of assignment that most agents dreamed of. Bryce followed that with "Bryce Larkin is gone, and he'll stay gone this time." He shook hands with Casey and Chuck, saying goodbye, then turned to Sarah and said "Sarah, we'll always have Omaha" and turned and walked out the door.

When he was gone, Chuck asked Sarah what he'd meant by the Omaha comment? Sarah snorted, "It was one of our old codes to contact each other, he's expecting me to go with him." she grabbed his hand and pulled him in for a kiss before saying, "I'd love to see his face when I don't turn up" with a grin.

* * *

The morning after Larkin left on his dream assignment, the Intersect team received text messages calling them into a briefing on short notice. Casey and Chuck were waiting for the link to D.C. to start while Sarah was rinsing their coffee mugs out in the kitchen. At that moment the link came up and General Beckman asked "Where's Agent Walker?" and Casey had just started to explain when Sarah walked up and apologised.

Graham had been smiling as Casey spoke, but when Sarah turned up, he was surprised and angry, he'd obviously been expecting her to leave with Larkin and didn't appreciate being disappointed.

The General and Graham filled them in on the mission, it was to attend a charity event being hosted by a well connected billionaire, Lon Kirk, who was being marketed as a great humanitarian, but was anything but. There were indications of him being involved in something big that was in play, and their job was to find out what that was.

Graham leant forward to say "We need this intel Walker, so you need to make sure it's quite clear that you're only there as Bartowski's companion, not his partner, there can be no impediments to you doing whatever you need to get what we're after from Kirk."

At that the General cut in to say "Director Graham, do I need to remind you of the terms of operation for the Intersect Project? Agent Walker cannot and will not conduct this mission in that manner!" He was about to bite when he suddenly remembered the mandates that she'd manoeuvred him into signing with her and the DNI, but he had to make one more try "General, surely you can see how important this is, we NEED this intel!"

"No Director, there are no grounds to risk the integrity of the Intersect project for a mission of this nature, if you're determined to send someone in to seduce Lon Kirk, you'll have to send another CIA team in, I will not allow the Intersect team to be compromised in this way."

Graham looked at her angrily. "Very well General, I will have to take another team off their current assignment and try to get them to Los Angeles in time for this mission then!" and with that, he stormed out of her office. She looked at them and nodded slightly to the door before she cut the link.

 **A/N: Hey, I said that I liked Michael Clarke Duncan, and Angie Harmon for that matter, and Forrest wasn't bad, just a hard nosed bitch.**


	9. What Are We Going To Do?

**Usual Disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and the real world's back there.**

When they reconvened in Chuck's room, Chuck re-established the link with Aunt D, as she came on she asked "Can someone explain to me what just happened?"

Casey looked at Sarah and Chuck, and seeing that they were still upset, he spoke "Larkin tried to get Sarah to go with him last night, General, and obviously Graham was expecting her to be gone. You didn't see it because he was behind you, but he was surprised and angry to see that Sarah here. He wasn't at all happy to be see that things hadn't gone the way he'd planned, so he was obviously trying to punish her by sending her in to seduce a mark who was too important for her to use her usual methods to get out of having sex with him."

"Shit! I'm sorry Sarah, I didn't think that bastard would try this." She stopped to unlock a drawer and pull out a document, holding it up to the camera. "In view of how he's behaving, perhaps it's time to enact this. When Chuck put together the case to get Carina out of the DEA, he also put together the case to get you out of the CIA..." She paused as Sarah kissed Chuck on the cheek and then continued "The President has signed it, all we need to do is fill in the date, let him know we're executing it and you'll be out of the CIA in an hour or two. Graham can't refuse or stall a lawful Presidential order, any more than the Administrator of the DEA could."

"Actually Auntie Di, if we can activate it that quickly, why don't we hold it in reserve?"

Aunt D looked at her "You've got a plan here, what is it?"

Sarah turned at Chuck and asked "We haven't talked about this, but are you ready to marry me now?"

He looked her in the eye and said "Whenever, wherever, yes, of course!"

She kissed him and turned back to the screen. "Well when Chuck got us to sign the paperwork for Piranha Security & Technology, I noticed that he'd recorded the directors as Charles Carmichael, Sarah Carmichael, Eleanore LaBelle and John Casey. Something that I don't believe Graham knows about is that about five years ago, a friend of mine got into the system and legally changed my name to Sarah Lisa Walker so I had a record that I existed. I know that Chuck doesn't like the name Charles Irving Bartowski, so if we had his name legally changed to his Charles Philip Carmichael identity, when we get married, we'll legally be Charles and Sarah Carmichael, in the real world. That's what I'd like to do, get out of the CIA, get married, and change my status with the DIA, NSA, FBI and the rest to married, as Mrs Sarah Carmichael, you see I've looked into ways to get out of this, and the rules show that married agents have more legal recourse to refuse any orders for the type of mission that Graham and others try and push me into. I trust you Auntie Di, but I don't necessarily trust the rest of the NSA any more than I do the CIA."

Aunt D nodded at that, smiling briefly as she said "It looks like we have a wedding to prepare for then" but turning serious again as she said "Sarah has a valid point though, none of you are safe so long as you can be dragged back into the standard chain of command. Chuck, how long to you think it would take you to put together a case that we could use to successfully break the Intersect Project away as a separate body that's loosely affiliated with the DCS, DIA, NSA, FBI and ODNI, but reports only to the DNI and the POTUS, in a simpler form of the way that the Special Projects Group is affiliated with SOCOM, CYBERCOM, CSS, JCS, OSD, DCS, DIA, NSA, FBI, ODNI and EOP but isn't under their general lines of command? If we can do that, you'll all be safer."

Sarah was staring at Chuck, but he tried to put that aside as he considered the question. "It shouldn't be that hard, actually, we have the mandate you got signed at the start and the justifications that pushed that through, the orders that Graham and some of the other CIA and NSA Directors have tried to have enacted which are contrary to the purpose and mandate of the project, and with their permission, we can show the sort of things that Sarah and Casey have been ordered to do for no good reason, and we can also show the success that we're having operating within our mandate. If I can focus on it. Two to three weeks, if I can't, which is more likely, four to five weeks."

Aunt D nodded "Can you get started on that ASAP?" Chuck nodded "Yes Auntie Di." She nodded again, I'll get things started on your name change then, I think I'll ask Ellie if she'd like to change her's as well, as you know, she doesn't like Bartowski any more than you do, now, will you be having a formal wedding, or just a registry one?"

Sarah and Chuck looked at each other and Saran said "I just want to get married, but now that it's out there, a formal wedding does sound nice?" Chuck nodded "I'd prefer a real wedding."

Aunt D smiled "It sounds like we have agreement on this, and you know there's no way that you'll stop Ellie from helping!"

Her smile disappeared then "Until then, I think you need to stay close Sarah, stay with Chuck and travel to and from work together, no going off on your own and definitely no meetings with the CIA. We don't know how far that bastard will go to get his revenge."

Sarah nodded sombrely at that, but said "I think you're right Auntie Di, but for now, I think it's time someone explained what you just said about this Special Projects Group."

Chuck glared at Aunt D and she grimaced "Sorry Chuck, OK, this is what I was talking about Sarah."

She brought up a diagram that showed a collection of groups that were connected to numerous parts of the military, intelligence community and the President and Secretary of Defense. She pointed out which of the groups were Chuck's and which were Ellie's and who they liaised with and reported to. Seeing that they regularly liaised with the Joint Chiefs, Secretary of Defense, the DNI and the President made Sarah wonder what she was getting into.

"But how to you do these functions when you're on the west coast?" Chuck hesitated and then said "When I need to attend meetings I take a jet and fly across to the east coast."

"Take a jet?" Aunt D decided to bail him out "We lay on F-15s, F-22s or F-18s for Chuck and Ellie when they need to get to Washington, or other centres, to do their duties, but we've had to do more of it on-line since this project started to hide it from Garham."

Sarah was still looking at Chuck "You're rated on F-15s, F-22s and F-18s?" "Just like you, yes!" "No, I'm only rated on F-18s! What else?"

At that Aunt D brought up the list, and it seemed to fill the screen. "Do you think I could see a copy of that, and the rest of my husband to be's records, please, Auntie Di? I'm beginning to think that I don't know the man I'm marrying at all!"

Aunt D looked at Chuck "Chuck?" He nodded resignedly, but said "Why don't we go to the dungeon and go through it there?, we need to get to the office." Sarah nodded at that, but Aunt D piped up again "I think you need to show her everything Chuck, medals, records, citations, everything! By the way, you need to update your Navy uniform again, the promotion to Captain from that engagement in May came through this morning, along with your extra medals, they're on your record" she looked at Casey "and John Casey is now a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marines with another two medals, as well."

* * *

They wound up the call and headed to the office then, with Casey driving Chuck's minivan as Chuck was with Sarah.

Chuck was thinking of the workload they had and made a decision as they were driving, calling Skip at the Buy More. Sarah looked at him in surprise when he started talking "Hi Skip, thanks for helping my friend when she came in the other day." They chatted about this and that for a while and then he got to the point of the call "So how are you liking it at the Buy More nowadays Skip?" When he got the response he expected he asked "How would you feel about coming to work with us? We've got more work than we can handle so we could use you." "Great, check on the HR system for how much notice you need to give, I'm pretty sure it's still only a week, wouldn't be more than two, put your notice in and we'll sort out getting you started at CCE as soon as you can, talk to you soon, bye."

Sarah looked at him "Are you sure about this?" Chuck nodded "Skip's good people and he's a good worker, so he's probably doing all the work there now, he's quite capable of handling most of the work that's holding us up, and you know that we need a hand."

At the office, Chuck made sure that they didn't need him for any of the work that had come in before he headed down to the Dungeon with Sarah for show and tell. He also told Jeff and Anna about his call to Skip, and as expected they were all for it, Skip may not be at their level, three world class hackers at one shitty retail store was enough of a stretch, but by normal people's standards, Skip was pretty good.

* * *

Over the next hour, Sarah was appalled, amazed, terrified, jealous and delighted about what Chuck had done over the past fourteen years. Mainly, though, she was appalled that his godmother had let him take so many risks. The fiftieth time or so she said that, the screen lit up to Auntie Di saying "LET HIM? I couldn't stop him! It didn't help that his god father and everyone else was encouraging him every step of the way either! Doing Special Forces, Marine Recon, Army Ranger and SEAL training at fifteen, which was a year after he started flying supersonic jets by the way, because he'd started as an Air Force Pilot, and Army and Naval Aviator when he was thirteen. They all seemed to accept that he just looked younger than he was because he was doing better than anyone else. How the hell was I supposed to stop him when he was was the poster child of the military? I sure as hell didn't want him out there, I wanted him safe and working on the analyst projects for our teams!"

The look on Chuck's face said that they'd had this discussion time and again and he was tired of it, but Aunt D was just starting to get wound up, saying "Do you want to see what they organised for Ellie's and his twenty firsts?" As she threw the images up on the screen pictures of him and Ellie standing front of an SR-71 with certificates that stated that Ellie had piloted the SR-71 at Mach 3.33 and Chuck piloted it at Mach 3.55 on her birthday in February 1999. There was one showing him and Casey in front of the same SR-71 with a certificate to say that he flew it from Edwards AFB to Ali Al Salem in Kuwait non-stop, covering 7891 miles in 5 hours for an average speed of 1578.4 MPH, Mach 2.39, in May 2007, which made her pause as the SR-71 wasn't supposed to be flying then. And there was another one of Chuck standing in front of a Mig-25 with a certificate to say that he'd piloted it at Mach 3.23 on his birthday in September 2002.

This last one made her look hesitantly at Chuck and he nodded "Yeah, that was the day I came back to find Bryce Larkin screwing Jill and fell apart a bit." "A bit? Casey said she almost destroyed you."

"Well it wasn't that bad at the start, yeah, I fell apart, but the problem was General Fuckin' Merriweather! You see we'd refused to develop a weapon he, or more to the point, the people behind him, wanted because it was too indiscriminate, the collateral damage would have been horrendous, and they were determined to get back at Dad and I. So when I fell apart I played right into their hands and they came after me. They had powerful people to push the argument through that the military couldn't rely on intel from an unstable source, and that I had to be examined by their 'military approved' psychiatrist rather than the agency's psychiatrist, Dr Dreyfus. The one they sent me to obviously had orders to take me apart and make me crack, and he was good enough at what he did to carry out his mission for the most part. That made it relatively easy for them to force me into obscurity in the fuckin' Buy More for the next five years to 'protect me while I was in my delicate state', along with Jeff and Anna. I've dealt with their psychiatrist, because he was just too dangerous a weapon to leave out there for them to use like that, but I'm still looking for my chance to bring down Merriweather and the others."

Sarah and Aunt D were horrified to hear this, especially Aunt D "Why didn't you tell me about this Chuck? I could have protected you!"

Chuck shook his head resignedly "No, Auntie Di, you couldn't, he and the people behind him were too powerful to take on head on. They still are, that's why I haven't managed to take them down yet, and I stuck out the Hell of the fuckin' Buy More, the best I could do was arrange for an accident to befall their brain butcher to stop him harming others."

"Actually, the people who showed themselves behind Merriweather are only the tip of the iceberg. There's a large, powerful and well connected organisation there that's pulling the strings in all sorts of areas and the frightening thing is that they're careful enough to keep themselves hidden for the most part, so I can't see the scope of their organisation or what they're doing. The only reason I spotted them at all was because those ones had to expose themselves to back Merriweather's play against me."

Aunt D went white at this, the idea that Chuck and his people couldn't find out the information about these people terrified her as she, like many others, had come to think of him as infallible. "Are you saying that it's not possible to catch these people Chuck?"

"Not with the resources I've been able to apply to the matter so far, no, maybe with a major exercise and the authority to breach laws around the world, but I haven't been able to unearth enough evidence to get justification for an exercise of that nature. I KNOW they're there, but I don't really have any proof of it."

Both he and Aunt D were despondent at this idea, so Sarah thought it may help to change the subject. "Auntie Di, can you explain how Chuck was flying that SR-71 in May? I thought the last one was decommissioned in ninety nine?"

Aunt D shook her head, still distracted by what Chuck had told them. "No Honey, it wasn't really decommissioned, it's being maintained in a state where it can be made flight ready quickly if it's required. It's mainly used by Chuck, and he and Ellie are its primary pilots now. And by the way, to the best of our knowledge, he's the only one who's flown both the SR-71 and Mig-25."

She shook herself then, getting what Sarah was trying to do. "As I expected, Sarah, he didn't do what I asked him to, he hasn't shown you everything, so I will." With that, she started bringing up other things, like his qualifications on many Russian planes and helicopters, his training and operations with Israeli Mossad, Duvdevan and Shayetet 13 units, the medals and citations that he didn't tell her about, and the fact that as well as the DIA, DCS, NSA, and FBI groups, he commanded some specialist Army, Navy and Air Force intelligence and CSS teams.

Sarah was looking daggers at Chuck by now, and Aunt D broke off to point out that he hadn't tried to cover up his faults, he was up front about those, he just didn't like to boast, so he usually didn't talk about his achievements. When Sarah went back over what she'd been told, she relaxed and nodded, conceding that she may not have told him about some of her's, either.

With that apparently resolved, Aunt D brought up something else that they hadn't covered, because they'd gotten sidetracked back at the house. "What are you going to do for offices and living arrangements after we move on these changes and you go to the new company and identities?"

He looked at her for a bit and then said that they'd use Quixote house, the ground floor at the opposite end to the CCE building would be split into two levels and fitted out with all the offices, meeting rooms and labs they'd need and they could have the general elevators, as well as some smaller private ones to access the Dungeon, they could separate the Dungeon's levels and areas so that outsiders were restricted in what they could access. He thought for a minute and said that the NSA contractors should be able to get all of that done in three to four weeks without problems. Once they'd moved in, he was planning to let Casey have his fun and blow up the CCE building, then have Mancha Holdings 'acquire' the property and use it to extend Quixote house to cover the whole block.

As far as accommodation went, they still had a few apartments free, though Uncle Roan was saying something about wanting to create an image for the people behind PS&T. He shook his head, saying that he had no idea what Uncle Roan had in mind. Aunt D nodded at that, saying "I'll talk to him, let him know the revised schedules and find out what he's got in mind. You may want to get his involvement in the office design as well, for all his faults, and I know he has plenty, he is a genius at projecting the right image." Chuck nodded, but Sarah asked "Why are you so hard on him Auntie Di? I think that's the nicest thing I've heard you say about him."

Aunt D looked at the screen for about a minute before she responded "I know love is supposed to be blind Sarah, but I've had to be pragmatic, a professional, for too long to allow myself to be blind to his faults. He's trustworthy and loyal, in most things anyway, he's steadfast and brave, in his own way, though not in the same way as Chuck, or John, or Bry of course, but at the same time he's an incorrigible charmer and lothario, and I worry that our daughter may have picked up those personality traits from him." "WHAT?"

Sarah's outburst made Aunt D realise that she'd put her foot in it again "Sorry, I presumed that someone had told you about that."

Chuck interjected with a barbed "Not our place Aunt D", which told her that she wasn't totally forgiven for telling Sarah about the girls and she sighed.

"You see Sarah, back in the eighties, I was no more able to resist Roan's charms than any of the other girls. He was rather like Larkin in that, though I'd like to think he had more character than that toad. We were working together in East Germany to bring down Honecker's government in the second half of eighty nine, and I gave in to him willingly and often, the problem came when we'd finished our job there and came home at the start of ninety, because I found out I was pregnant. I must say, he stood by me when I told him that I was pregnant and didn't question it when I told him that it was his."

"My family was less supportive, they'd pulled a lot of strings to get me the career path I wanted after I refused to go along with the political marriage that they'd planned for me, so when I refused to have an abortion and declared that I was keeping my baby, they almost disowned me. They came around though and got me posted to an out of the way station where no-one would see me. Things were easier back then, there was nothing like video links or the connectivity that we have now, so I could hide out through the pregnancy and when Abigail was little. When she was on solid food, she was adopted by a married cousin of mine who couldn't have children. Unfortunately I'd realised that my family was right, to a degree, I wasn't ready to give up my career to become a mother, and Abigail would be able to have a better life in a real family with my cousin."

"I saw her whenever I could as Auntie Di, I got that from you lot, and Roan came too, he may be a failure as a partner but he was never a failure as a father, he always cared for her and tried to be there for her, not quite as good as you, Chuck, but I dare say he's been a better father than I have a mother. Anyway, that was how things went until she was nearly fourteen when she had an accident trying to do something she shouldn't because she was too stubborn to back down." She added "Rather like someone else I remember" as she looked at Chuck. Sarah glanced at him and said "Oh, we'll be going back to THAT, but we're talking about Abigail's accident here, aren't we Auntie Di?"

Aunt D nodded "It was rather serious, so my cousin called us, partly to let us know, but she also needed blood, and neither she or her husband were the right type for Abigail. Unfortunately, Abigail noticed that and had a total meltdown, so the only way to calm her down was to tell her the truth, that we were her parents. It took her a while to forgive us, mainly me, for giving her up, but it improved, and we have a good relationship with her now, perhaps too good, as she's followed us into this business."

"Isn't she just seventeen?"

"Yes, but she's started university and I couldn't stop her starting the NSA's entry programs, it was all I could do to keep her out of the CIA, I had to use my fear of what might happen to her in there to do that. And as I mentioned earlier, I think she's her father's daughter when it comes to sex, she lost her virginity before she was fifteen and she's getting a reputation."

Sarah couldn't let that go "Ah, Auntie Di, I don't think you can blame that all on Roan, didn't you tell me you were wild too before you came into this business?"

"Well, yes, but I started at university, not the start of high school."

"The fact that she stared going wild after she found out that the people that she knew as Auntie Di and Uncle Roan were actually her parents probably wasn't a coincidence, either."

"No…. Will you stop that? I've already got your mother and Ellie telling me when I'm being ridiculous, I don't need you to do it as well!"

When Sarah grinned, Aunt D sighed "Yes, I know it isn't fair to put all the blame on Roan for this, but it's easier, alright? Now didn't you want to hear about Chuck getting into trouble?"

Sarah grinned again "That was a rather clumsy attempt to divert, Auntie Di, but yes." With that Chuck went to stand, saying "I think that's my cue to get started on preparing the case for the Intersect Project" but Sarah grabbed his belt and hauled him back down "No way Buster, you're staying here to explain this to me!"

The first video Aunt D showed was what looked like a six or seven year old Chuck standing up to some bullies who looked twice his size, standing between them and another kid his size on the ground. The biggest one grabbed at him, and Sarah quite clearly saw the move he used to break the boy's wrist. The other two pounced on him and took him down with their greater weight and started hitting him, then a nine or ten year old Ellie came running in and plucked them off him, doing serious damage to them. It was only after Ellie dealt with the issue that a teacher arrived to haul Chuck and Ellie off to the office.

Sarah turned to stare at Chuck "How did you do that, at that age?" Aunt D cut in "Sorry Sarah, I keep forgetting that you were gone before you found out about this. You know who Mary is now" Sarah nodded "Well she started Ellie and Chuck on exercise regimes when they were toddlers, gymnastics, little athletics..." at Sarah's blank look she stopped to explain "It was something Mary saw in Australia, athletics for little kids, she thought it was a great idea so she started Ellie and Chuck on it early, and as well as the rest she taught them martial arts, as a result, by the time Chuck started school he was stronger and better coordinated than other kids, and knew how to do that. Of course, it was Chuck and Ellie who got in trouble for that incident, and they had to find a new school for them after Mary threatened the principal when she found out what happened."

Many of the videos were similar, though as he got older some were boys who attacked him because girls rebuffed them to spend time with Chuck, and as he got up towards the time that his father would have left, he was getting into trouble with street racing. That begged the obvious question "How the hell did you have money for cars when you were eleven or twelve Chuck?"

He noted that Aunt D was interested in the answer to that, too and shrugged. "I didn't, I've always picked up things when I saw them, and I watched Dad when I helped him rebuild and update our old Mustang and the guy down the street when he was working on his Harley too, so I got into one of the racing groups through someone's younger brother who knew what I could do. At first I was working on the machines for them and the older boys were doing the driving. As I watched them though, I could see where they were making mistakes. I tried to point out where they were going wrong, but that made them angry, and one threw the keys at me, telling me to show him if I thought I could do better, so I did. From then on I was driving AND working on their machines, so I got tired of their crap pretty quick, but the money I got from my cut of the winnings before I left paid for my Harley, and the money I won with the Harley paid for its updates. I kept on racing and updating it until I finished at Stanford, when I gave up on racing, and everything else."

Sarah looked at him "So that Harley upstairs..." he nodded "Is the one I bought back in ninety three, with a few changes."

She looked at him for a while, then smiled "Well one thing's certain, life will never be boring with you Chuck." With that she kissed him and said she better get upstairs and do some work while he got started on the business case for the group. As she started to leave though she stopped and turned back.

"You know how you're bringing Skip in to help deal with the business workload we've got?" Chuck nodded "Well I thought of someone else who would be good. You know my friend in the CIA who got my name changed under the covers, or at least he knows you as the Piranha, Peter Lee…." Chuck nodded, he knew Pete "I trust Pete, and I think he'd fit into the group here. He says he's not up to your level but I do know that he's about the best that the CIA has on that side of things, so I think he could help us, what do you think?"

Chuck nodded thoughtfully "I hadn't thought about it but yeah, Pete is good and Jeff and I have been working with him unofficially for nearly ten years now." He nodded again "I'll contact him and see what he thinks of the idea."

That got him one of his special Sarah smiles and another kiss before she headed upstairs to the office.


	10. Bad Pennies

**Sorry to those who've already heard this. When I was talking about the last chapter, something that I hadn't actually said OUTSIDE of my head before came up, that being that given who Mary was (Frost), if she wanted the best for her kids, I could quite see her creating an exercise program and getting them started in gymnastics, athletics and martial arts in the form of a game from when they were toddlers, and instil the regime in them so that they'd continue it as they got older. That way, by the time they were teenagers they'd be WAY ahead of any normal people, which would in turn make it logical for them to blitz the toughest training there is, putting them even further ahead of 'normal' folk, seems only natural to me.**

 **Also, as I set up early in the story, Ellie and Chuck got near perfect memory from Frost the way Sarah did from her father, so they'd pick up things far faster than most because once they saw something, they had it, which it would make it easier for them (and Sarah) to master most things.**

 **BTW: This chapter will have some of you reaching for the brain bleach, you have been warned.**

 **Usual disclaimers for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed, and the real world's back there somewhere, on the left I think.**

* * *

Chuck wanted to tell Emma and the girls about the wedding, but Sarah suggested that they wait until they had a better idea of the date, so they agreed to sit down with Ellie and sort that out first.

The look that Ellie gave them when they asked if she could help basically said 'Do you think I'd let you try to do this without me?' Given what they had on their plates, she told them to leave the wedding running around to her, as she had more free time since she'd handed in her notice at the hospital.

When Aunt D had told her about what was going on, and asked whether she wanted to have her name changed from Eleanor Bartowski to Eleanore LaBelle as well, she'd jumped at the chance. She immediately handed in her notice at the hospital, telling them that she had to get away from Los Angeles as everything there reminded her of Devon. With the amount of leave she'd built up, she pretty much finished when she handed in her notice, as she only had a few things left to wind up, and she spent much of her time working in the Dungeon, which cleared her slate for the wedding planning and she went into overdrive as soon as they gave her the go ahead.

With that out of the way, they did go to tell Emma and the girls, and they were thrilled, well it was all moving too quickly for the girls at first, but Sarah asked to have a private word with them and once she'd explained that she didn't want to do anything to change the way things were between them and their father, and asked them to be her bridesmaids, their hesitation disappeared.

Chuck was concentrating on putting together the case for the Intersect Project as a largely independent body, and Sarah was staying in the office to avoid worrying Chuck, and because Auntie Di had a point, they didn't know what Graham would do.

* * *

They did have one trip to make, though, as they were both summoned to D.C. when Aunt D shared the news that they were getting married with the President among others. Sarah was a little sad that the fantasy she'd had of them getting the SR-71 for the flight to D.C. wasn't realised, because she'd dreamed of a flight in that plane since she started flying jets, even more so after what Auntie Di had told her about Chuck and Ellie, but the F-15E that they took was still the fastest plane that she'd ever flown in.

When they arrived at Edwards, Sarah could see that Chuck was quite well known and respected, to the point where the men were all polite and respectful to her, without blatantly checking her out, which was a pleasant change, that behaviour continued at Andrews, and once they'd changed from their flight suits to their uniforms, they were chauffeured to the White House in a limo.

At the White House, the group that was waiting for them in the Oval Office intimidated Sarah, with the President, the Secretary of Defense, the DNI, the Joint Chiefs, their NSA, CSS & Cyber Command boss and a few other senior military people, Aunt D was reserved as she was the junior person in the room after them. Sarah was nervous about the attention she was getting until the President grinned and said "Yeah, I guess I can see how she landed him when Jenna and Barbara couldn't get anywhere with him."

After that, the tone of the meeting was more relaxed, though it was still made clear to Sarah that she was being tested to determine whether she was good enough for their top military and intelligence asset. Sarah held her breath when Chuck's response to that was that they had two options, they'd have both of them, or neither, and he pointed out that if they left, others on their team might possibly leave as well.

Aunt D spoke up then "You'll almost certainly lose Commander LaBelle, Commander Burdon, Commander Barnes and Lieutenant Wu, and probably lose myself, Lieutenant Colonel Casey and Lieutenant Colonel Mills as well if Captain Carmichael and Major Walker are pushed into the position of leaving, and we WILL be expecting you to uphold that last order you signed sir!"

"Can't you people take a joke?" When Chuck fixed him with a look the President sighed. "OK, OK, it wasn't altogether a joke. Miss Walker, we've all been relying on your fiancé and his sister a great deal for fourteen years now. While they can't be given the public honours that they deserve, they're very much a national treasure, so I believe that it was understandable for us to be concerned to hear that one of them was getting hitched to someone of your, shall we say, rather formidable reputation? and want to meet you for ourselves?" Sarah nodded "I must apologise for the way I put it though, that was unfair and impolite, but we wanted to talk to you and find out what you're like, and if things came out OK, see whether it can be arranged for us to be at you wedding?"

Sarah looked at Chuck when he said that and he signed her that the choice was her's, all her's. Both she and Aunt D had tears in their eyes at that and she nodded, saying "It would be an honour to have you at our wedding Mr President." He hesitated before saying "Thank you, but when I said 'us', well there's a few of us!" With that he handed a list to Aunt D, who's eyes bugged out before she brought it over to Chuck and Sarah. Sarah's eyes bugged out as well when she saw how long this list was, and that she recognised many of the names, she forgot the others in the room for a few minutes as she asked Chuck about some of the other names, some of which were obviously foreign, and he explained that they were mainly prominent military and intelligence figures from around the world.

In the end, Chuck sighed, saying "So much for a small wedding, are you sure you're OK with this?" Sarah nodded and he gave her a quick kiss before turning back to say "Very well Mr President." It was only then that it occurred to Sarah that they'd been ignoring the President and other important figures in the room while they'd been talking, and she blushed. The Secretary of Defense spoke up then "We have one other request, if we may, Chuck?" Chuck looked at him "Yes sir?" "That it be a military wedding, you see your friends and admirers would like to be able to give you the military honours that you're due." Chuck looked at Sarah and she nodded with a smile, but he didn't look happy as he responded. "Very well Mr Secretary, but I have a request for uniform dress standards, and that's for everyone in uniform who's not in the wedding party to wear the least ornate and colourful form of mess dress possible, preferably blues, with no more than miniature ribbons and rank insignia. I don't want our wedding photos to look like a three ring circus, it's bad enough that I'll have to look like a clown for my own wedding." A couple of the senior military people looked like they wanted to say something at that, but they were stilled as the Secretary nodded "Very well Chuck, we'll make sure that everyone honours that request." The Commander of Special Operations Command spoke up then "Will you allow us to put on a couple of sabre arches Chuck? We have far too many officers from all four branches who want to honour you for one arch, for that matter they'll be rather bigger than regulation with two." Chuck nodded "Yes, sir, that would be alright, though I'd appreciate it if you could ensure that their presentation is uniform." The Commander nodded "Of course Chuck! We wouldn't do anything to take away from you and Sarah's big day."

Chuck looked at Aunt D then "With the majority of the people based here General, it would make more sense for the wedding to be over here, do you think you could find someone who can assist Commander LaBelle in locating a suitable venue for the wedding here General?" She nodded with a smile "We can do that, Captain, yes." They went went back to getting to know Sarah after that, and there was considerable interest when Aunt D dropped the bombshell that Emma was Sarah's mother. Sarah was surprised by the amount of respect that at least half of these men obviously had for her mother, but she was confused and concerned about the cryptic questions and answers that went back and forth at that reveal, and the musing looks she was getting after that.

After those discussions were done, most of them made their goodbyes and left, so it was just the President, the DNI, Aunt D and them left in the Oval Office. That was when they discussed the proposal to get the Intersect Project out from under the control of the CIA and NSA, Chuck didn't have much more than half of it completed so far, but he had the overall arguments and primary evidence to justify the argument, so they went through those. With what they had to tell them, especially Sarah, it wasn't hard to convince the President and the DNI that this needed to go through, so their main question was how long would it take Chuck to get all the documentation together?

* * *

The President's schedule dictated that their discussions couldn't go on for too long, which was good as they had to cram a lot into their visit east. They changed out of their uniforms and headed straight to the restaurant where Carina was having lunch with someone they wanted to talk to, Pete. Carina had told Pete that a couple of friends would be joining them, so he was a little uncomfortable when they were there alone at first, as he knew Carina Miller's reputation, but she wasn't looking or behaving like the infamous Carina Miller and when Sarah came in with someone, he felt much better.

Chuck was comforted by the way that Pete looked around and asked Sarah if it was safe for her to be seen here when they arrived, as he was showing genuine concern for her, that didn't stop him having a little fun before he let Pete know that he was the Piranha, though, as Pete had no idea who the Piranha, or Roscoe, or the Lotus for that matter, actually were. They'd helped each other out when they needed it for nearly a decade, but they'd never shared names, it was only Chuck's superior skills that had uncovered the Mongol's true identity.

As they were still pressed for time, once they'd greeted each other, Chuck got down to the reason for organising this meeting, Sarah's suggestion that they invite Pete to join them. Pete was all for the idea, but didn't think that the CIA would release him. While they could have gone down the same route as they did for Carina and Sarah, Chuck didn't want to overplay his hand before Sarah was safely out, so he asked Pete how he felt about being arrested and thrown in a black site for hacking into highly classified and sensitive military systems? Pete laughed, then looked dubious when he realised that Chuck was serious about the 'arrest' part, then laughed again at the thought of how audaciously simple it would be to pull this off. After he'd stopped to think about it and realised that they could pull this off, he asked Chuck if he could use more people?

Chuck looked at him and just asked "Who?" "Haxman, The Krait and Gimli." Chuck smiled at that and said he'd definitely be interested if they wanted to come over. Pete spent the next fifteen minutes on the phone, and grinned at Chuck when he finished "They're in!" Chuck matched his grin and laid out the communications they'd use, either between Carina and Pete, or via their traditional links. With that, Sarah and Chuck had to leave, but when they said that they had to get down to New York to talk to Vera Wang about the dresses before they headed back to L.A. Pete froze.

Sarah had to laugh at his expression, but she didn't want to torture him, so she told him that she and Chuck were getting married, and someone in the family had managed to talk Vera Wang into doing the dresses for them, but this would be their only chance to see her. They had a round of hugs and kisses, as Pete had to get back to the office as well, and Pete's whispered "I like this new you!" in Carina's ear meant the world to her.

They flew the F-15 down to New York, and Vera came down to meet them at LaGuardia, as Aunt D's family was VERY well connected and she'd told her as much as she could about the happy couple to intrigue Vera. When she saw the Air Force F-15E land at LaGuardia and the aircrew climb out to hop onto a cart headed towards the building where she was waiting for them, Vera somehow knew that this was the couple that she was here to see, and sure enough, it was the same pair that walked in a few minutes later, apologising for keeping her waiting and thanking her for seeing them.

She wasn't surprised to hear that they had ideas about what they wanted, most couples did, but she WAS surprised how clear those ideas were, and how much merit they had. Up front, the bride to be laid out the measurements and numerous pictures for herself, the maid of honour, the bridesmaid and the two junior bridesmaids, saying that she wanted all of them to be shown in the best light. Her fiancé also provided pictures of himself and his groomsmen in their dress whites to so she knew what the bride and her bridesmaids would be standing up there with.

The fiancé also talked about the bridesmaids' hair colour and skin tones, with some good ideas about what colours would complement them. He started to say something about the dress designs, but stopped himself, saying that Vera, as the designer, and Sarah, as the bride, should decide that, but Vera asked him to continue, quite interested to see what he'd come up with, and Sarah all but begged him to show them. The ideas he sketched for his bride to be and her attendants' gowns were simple, elegant, and flattering, making the most of their tall, slender frames.

Sarah grinned and said "I know!" when Vera murmured "This one's a keeper!" to her, and Vera couldn't help matching her grin. Vera had to ask him though "How does an obviously straight military man have such wonderful insight into what suits women?" He smiled, saying "I was mainly raised by my sister", pointing to the picture of the maid of honour "according to her idea of what a proper gentleman should be, and I try to keep up with what's going on with my daughters", waving at the pictures of the two junior bridesmaids. Vera frowned at that and looked at Sara, thinking that it sounded as though he'd pushed her to have his sister and, daughters? No, that wasn't possible! Why would he say that? as most of her bridal party. Sarah saw this going through her head and shook her head, smiling "No, it was my choice, I didn't tell him about it until after they'd agreed, you see I knew Chuck and Ellie when we were young and she's like a sister to me too, and the girls, well I love them and I wanted them to be part of our wedding, because they're part of my family now too." She saw Vera still looking from the pictures to Chuck with a disbelieving look on her face and gave a little laugh "Oh, they're his girls alright, they're just as endearing, and their mother assures me just as frustrating as he can be!"

Vera shook her head with a smile "Well it's a tall order, but I think that you two are officially the most extraordinary couple that I've ever worked with. I do believe that I'm going to enjoy this." She confirmed all of Sarah's measurements, took some more pictures to make sure she had her colouring correct and sorted out all the final details. Then they said their goodbyes and Vera went to the window to watch them return to the F-15, climb in and leave, stopping to wave up at the window there she was from the cockpit, she got pictures of that as well, but understood that those pictures would have to be kept locked away.

* * *

While this was going on unbeknownst to him, Director Graham was getting frustrated, because with all of the resources he'd had tied up for months now, searching for Devon Woodcomb and Emma Blake, no-one had found a sniff of them. The only positive outcome of these hunts was that they'd located Jill Roberts and brought her in, confirming that she'd had no involvement with Devon Woodcomb whatsoever. Unfortunately, in the process of the 'questioning' about Woodcomb, she'd also confirmed that she knew far more about his operations than he was comfortable with and he'd had her disposed of. Larkin had somehow found out about what happened to Roberts and he'd gone dark, so HE now had to be added to the list of those that Graham couldn't find to quiet.

Looking at what was on the table at the moment, and how little of it was favourable to his plans, made Graham come to a decision. Walker's father wasn't much of a card to play, but he was all he had to use at the moment and this was what he'd kept the idiot alive for, to use him as a last ditch measure, so he kicked off the contingency plans to have him released ASAP. If he managed to bond with his daughter and was grabbed again, he may prove useful in bringing Walker back under control, if not, he could always be disposed of. On the day of his release, Graham went to see him, he told Blake that his daughter was doing pretty well for herself with a rich mark in L.A. and gave him her phone number. He also told him that he better go straight and not get himself sent back here, knowing that throwing down a challenge like that to Joe Blake (or rather Jack Burton as he was incarcerated as) was like waving a red rag at a bull, with his misplaced confidence in himself, Blake would be trying to work cons before he got to L.A. and he'd HAVE to go there to try and work his daughter's mark, just to prove he could.

As he left the prison, Graham laughed to himself, Blake made a crap conman for the same reason he was a crap agent, his overblown confidence in himself, he was a legend in his own mind, but in the real world, he was a joke. That was how they'd located Walker in San Diego when she was finishing high school under the name of Jenny Burton. She'd somehow managed to make him go straight for nearly a year, so they'd stayed off the radar for that time, but he'd once again decided that he was smarter than her and the authorities (Graham snorted at that, he wasn't even sure that her mother, the Fox, was smarter than Walker), so he'd started trying to work his cons again, leading everyone to him, and her.

* * *

Just after he'd released 'Jack Burton', something else happened that cheered Graham up, they got a lead on the cipher that apparently disappeared with Larkin's body after Beckman's Pitt Bull shot him. He'd pulled strings and got powerful people to push to rebuild the Intersect computer after the Intersect files he had Larkin steal ended up in Bartowski's head and all his plans went to shit, arguing that an unstable civilian couldn't be trusted as the repository of the nation's secrets, and the new computer was almost finished now. The problem was that the cipher was a key component for the Intersect computer, and Beckman had insisted that the scientist who'd created it had been one of those who'd been killed when Larkin blew up the Intersect facility. Since Larkin had reappeared and taken off though, rumours had started surfacing that Fulcrum were acquiring the cipher, presumably from Larkin, to get their own Intersect working.

As Beckman's Human Intersect project was being touted as the premier team of the United States Intelligence Community, they were the logical choice to send after the cipher, and the best part was that Beckman couldn't argue with the order. As soon as they'd been assigned the task of recovering the cipher to Beckman's team, Graham started organising a groundswell movement to insist that the civilian Human Intersect represented too great a risk to the security of the United States to leave walking about with the nation's secrets in his head once the Intersect was in the heads of REAL agents, using the worrying incidence of prisoners being removed from federal detention facilities to forestall any proposals to just lock him away once the new Intersect was up and proper Agents were imprinted with the Intersect.

He made sure that all his ducks were in a row, so that as soon as the Intersect Team recovered the cipher (and they would, he'd never admit it to anyone else, but they were proving to be by far the best team in existence), they'd get the order issued for the risk that Bartowski represented to the security of the nation to be eliminated, and it wouldn't even look like it came from him, as it would be coming down from the concerned big brass! He'd have just what he wanted then, as he'd make sure that HIS agents were the ones who were imprinted with the Intersect and get his techs to take a copy of the files just before something happened to 'corrupt' all the master files. On top of that, as soon as Beckman's Human Intersect was eliminated for the good of the country, he'd get Walker back, yep, he'd been wondering whether he'd get past these setbacks for a while there, but everything was coming up roses now!

Graham briefly entertained having 'Jack Burton' arrested and put back in prison, but decided that it'd be more fun to let him run for a while before he grabbed him, he'd be easy enough to pick up later and it'd destroy him more if he had a chance to start believing in the illusion of freedom. It would also be interesting to see whether Walker had forgiven him enough to make him worth hanging onto for leverage, so he'd let him contact her and see how that played out.

When they had the briefing to send them after the cipher, Chuck could see that Graham was excited about something, but Aunt D was worried, so he hauled everyone back to his room and initiated a new, REALLY secure link to Aunt D, and when it came up said "Alright Aunt D, tell me what I'm missing here!"

That was enough to snap Sarah out of the happy daze she'd been in since they came back from New York, and their meeting with Vera Wang, for God's sake, to make the dresses for her impending wedding. Taking in what was on Auntie Di's face now, she kicked herself, this wedding was ruining her as a spy! On her worse day before this, she would never have missed this! Casey wasn't much better, swearing at himself for missing this when Chuck picked up on it while he was excited about his upcoming wedding!

Aunt D explained that the cipher was effectively the artificial brain of the Intersect computer, the key component, that was why she hadn't been worried about them building a new Intersect computer, because it was useless without the cipher. They'd presumed that it was destroyed in the explosion when they couldn't find any trace of it when they were sifting through the wreckage, and she'd listed the identity that Stefan was using when he built the cipher among the dead from the explosion, so as far as anyone knew, there was no way of creating another cipher.

Apparently though, Larkin had taken the cipher with him after he'd downloaded the Intersect files. Casey started swearing at himself for not finding it on him after he shot him when she said that, but she stopped him "No, John, you couldn't have known, the cipher is no bigger than a medallion, or a large coin, he could have hidden it in his shoe, or even swallowed it to prevent you finding it, but the problem is that they know about it now, and it's our job to recover it." She faltered then "Chuck,..."

"It's alright Auntie Di, I know, once we recover the cipher and they have the Intersect computer working, my termination order will be signed..." "WHAT?"

He quickly turned to pull Sarah into his arms and hold her as he explained "When they have the Intersect computer working, and especially once they can imprint their agents with the Intersect, they'll be arguing that there's far too much risk in having a civilian bumbling around with all the nation's secrets in his head, and that the only way to protect the security of the nation is to eliminate the threat, to ensure that no-one can get their hands on me and use me against the nation."

He looked at the screen and Aunt D nodded regretfully "Yes, you've stated the arguments quite well Chuck, but we do have one advantage, a large part of the reason that Sarah and John were selected for this mission was that they're the nation's top assassins, and while there's considerable doubt that Agent Walker has retained enough professional detachment to do the job, no one doubts that my Pit Bull, sorry John…."

His grin had a feral edge to it "Why apologise? We've been cultivating that image for as long as I've been working for you to fool the sheep General!"

She nodded "Quite! That my Pit Bull will carry out the assignment without any qualms…. Actually, is Ellie still there? She should hear this." Chuck nodded and went to get her, but as he came back in he heard Sarah saying "But I should have seen it!" angrily, so he kissed her on the head to soothe her as he sat down.

Aunt D quickly filled Ellie in on what they were discussing, then went on "When you recover the cipher and they bring the new Intersect computer on-line, I'll be made to order Chuck's termination to protect the security of the nation, and with John's mad dog killer reputation, there's no logical reason to give the job to anyone else. You'll go off off to a friend's for the night or something Ellie and we'll stage the scene so that John is seen entering the apartment, followed by Sarah a little while later. After that, Sarah will be seen leaving the apartment with two or more large bundles and that will be the last anyone sees of any of them. When you come home you'll find signs of a struggle and lots of blood sprayed around, mainly Chuck's and John's, but maybe a little of Sarah's type too. You'll call the police of course, and we'll either intercept the call or get the evidence off of them. From the blood, the damage and the external surveillance, the obvious scenario will be that John killed Chuck, but Sarah arrived him and found him before he could get rid of the evidence. She killed him for killing the man she loved and then disappeared, taking the bodies to dispose of them, because it was obvious that their bosses had been the ones who ordered Chuck's termination, and she'd shown her hand by killing John for personal reasons. We'll put Ellie in Witness Protection because it'll be obvious that two people were killed there, her records will disappear and you'll all start again under some of your other names."

They stopped to take that in, but Sarah was the first to speak "What about the wedding?" "Well we'd have to screen all the guests and cut those who we aren't a hundred percent sure of, but it could go on. You don't need to get married now though, Sarah Walker will be gone..."

Sarah cut her off harshly "We're not getting married because we NEED to, we're getting married because we love each other and want to spend the rest of our lives together!"

Casey snorted, but stepped back smartly when she swung her death glare on him. Aunt D and Ellie were having trouble not laughing at the scene, but realised that it had gone too far when she started to cry and Chuck took her in his arms. Ellie squeezed her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek, saying softly "Sweetie, NOTHING's going to stop your wedding, I promise you, even if can't be anything but the family, you'll have your wedding!"

Aunt D said "Sarah" a few times softly before she saw a searing blue eye glaring at her over Chuck's shoulder. Obviously she wasn't forgiven yet, but she didn't expect to be. "I'm sorry Honey, I shouldn't have made a dig like that, but inappropriate humour is my coping mechanism. I'm just furious at that bastard because I know that he's sitting back in the shadows, playing the puppet master and using others to order Chuck's death. You know how I love Chuck, so you can imagine how I feel about the fact that I know that I'll be the one who's forced to actually voice the order for his termination. Ellie's right, and I'm sorry, I should have been the one to say it, NOTHING will stop your wedding, if it's just us against the world, you'll be married with your family there for you!"

Sarah sniffed a few times and nodded, then, much as they weren't in the mood, they had to get to the office, and Sarah was still so upset that she actually let Chuck drive her Porsche. While they were working, Chuck had a thought and called Aunt D to ask if she still wanted him to finish the case to split off the Intersect Project. She nodded "I think we have to, even without you, Sarah and Casey, the Intersect technology's too dangerous for someone like Graham to get his hands on!" Chuck nodded and went back to work, which mostly entailed working on the Intersect Project business case and searching for the cipher.

* * *

It only took them four days to find and recover the cipher, and Graham was laughing to himself about the fact that Walker and Casey were working so hard to get the intel to recover the one thing that would end their team. What Graham didn't know, of course, was most of the death and mayhem he'd attributed to Walker and the brute force killings and damage he'd attributed to Casey were actually Chuck. The ones that they were coming up against in this search were generally bottom feeders, low level thugs for hire, and the things he was seeing when he flashed on them meant that all he wanted to do was rid the world of them to protect the others that they'd prey on if they could. As soon as he ascertained that they had no information of use, he'd finish them with a blade, or a snapped neck.

While they were searching for the cipher, they raised the suspicious makeup of the Fulcrum forces that they'd been discovering in the process. What they'd seen from Fulcrum had never been at the top of the food chain, but what they'd been dealing with on this mission had a distinctly disposable vibe. When they tried to bring that up in their briefings however, they were invariably shot down by Graham, telling them that their job wasn't to critique Fulcrum recruiting practices, it was to recover the damned cipher!

That in itself was confusing, because Graham wasn't an idiot, he wouldn't have been so dangerous if he was, but he was wilfully ignoring the evidence in front of him here. Chuck conceded that Sarah was probably right when she said "I think it's me, he's desperate to get the cipher back so he can have you killed off, because that will finish the Human Intersect Project and he can get me back under his control as soon as possible, but what I don't get is why he's confident that he can control me, we know that he has no idea where Mama is, so I don't know what he thinks he has to hold over me."

When they'd recovered the cipher, Sarah and Chuck were waiting in Chuck's room after the debriefing, watching for the transporters who'd be arriving to collect it from Casey, and they were discussing Graham's arrogance in the debriefing.

Sarah and Aunt D, especially, had to hide their reactions in the debriefing when Graham said "Excellent work Sarah, Casey" as if Chuck didn't exist or hadn't been a major part of their recovering the device. When Graham went on to say that the transporters would be there to collect the cipher and return it to D.C. at the earliest opportunity, Sarah asked just what the cipher was, to play the game.

Aunt D explained that the cipher was the artificial brain for the new Intersect computer, but Chuck had had to keep the expected act up, so he'd asked "The new Intersect?" Graham actually deigned to answer him for once. "We've been working on a new one ever since the original Intersect was destroyed, the cipher is the final piece."

So Chuck had to ask "What happens to me, the old Intersect?" "Tomorrow the new computer will be on-line, and Operation Bartowski officially comes to an end, you'll be done with us, no more briefings, no more missions, no more spies, enjoy the rest of your life Chuck." It was so hard to hold back their responses to the smug bastard's gloating look as he came out with this platitude to Chuck, knowing that he'd be having his termination ordered as soon as the Intersect computer was on-line.

At that moment, the transporters arrived and took custody of the cipher from Casey, and the discussion changed to the fact that they all had to disappear now as they moved from the window to the bed. It would be hardest for Ellie, as she had the most friends to leave behind, the rest of them really had no more than acquaintances. Sarah asked "Do you think this plan is going to work?"

She could feel his chin move on the top of her head as he nodded "Yes, Aunt D has read in the DNI and the President, so that they'll put up a token argument before they sign off on the termination order. Casey is the only logical choice to carry out the order, he'll put up a token argument as a matter of honour as well, and then give in to do his duty. By this time tomorrow, we'll all be officially dead or gone, I just feel sorry for Ellie, the rest of us have nearly all of our friends in the group, but most of her circle of friends are from the hospital or medical school, the majority of them are shallow skanks and douches, as she met them through Woodcomb, but she has some genuine friends that she'll have to leave behind when Eleanor Bartowski disappears."

They'd been laying there for a bit over half an hour when the screen lit up to show an angry Aunt D "That bastard's desperate to see you dead Chuck, he's already gotten the order signed off and made sure that I gave the order to have John carry it out when the Intersect Computer comes on line, or earlier if that's more workable! Is Ellie there? We need to make our plans for tonight." Chuck went to get her, and when they were all there (Casey was on a secure link from his bedroom), Aunt D continued.

"You have everything lined up for a girls' night out and staying over at a friend's place tonight Ellie?" She nodded "Good, now John will come in about an hour before dawn to eliminate Chuck, and Sarah will come in just before dawn, as per the practice she's set up recently whenever she isn't staying over. About half an hour after that, she'll come out with two rather large bundles and disappear in Chuck's work minivan, and that will be the last anyone sees of Charles Bartowski, John Casey or Sarah Walker. A few hours later, Ellie will stagger home from her girls' night out, find all the blood in the apartment and call nine one one, the Police will come and she'll be taken away to be put into the Witness Protection scheme, and that will be the last anyone sees of Eleanor Bartowski, too."

This was all quite logical and workable, but something else occurred to Sarah "Shit, where are we going to stay after that?" Ellie was thinking about the plan, trying to make sure that they hadn't missed anything and said distractedly "It's alright Sweetie, we'll stay in the Dungeon Apartment, you and Chuck can take one room and John and I will take the other." It took her a while to realise that everyone was silent after that and she looked up to see everyone looking at her, Aunt D and Sarah were staring at her in shock, Chuck was looking amused, and John's expression said "Oh shit!"

When she realised what she'd said, she went bright red and her expression matched John's, but she said defiantly "What? We were together for a couple of years before I took up with Devon. It started with him trying to comfort me when I was upset that my little brother was trying to service every woman on the west coast between eight and eighty…." She saw Chuck flinch at that and was immediately contrite "Oh I'm sorry Chuck, that wasn't fair, but I was angry at the time, OK, between twelve and forty."

Sarah's eyes widened when she saw that Chuck didn't bother arguing about that.

"And the comforting became more, at MY instigation Auntie Di, John didn't push it, I begged him, because I felt unappealing and worthless when Chuck had someone different in bed every time I turned around, and all I'd had were a few jocks who'd slept with any girl that they could. John was sweet, and caring, and he made me feel that I was something special, so I begged him to make love to me. It was wonderful and we kept going for the next two years or so until I stupidly took up with that tool because the wild sex with him was exciting, and John and I went back to being friends. We've only taken up our relationship again since Devon's been gone."

She hesitated then "I always thought you knew because I thought that Chuck would have said something, intentionally or otherwise." Aunt D shook her head with a smile "Oh Honey, how could you think that? You know how much he loves you!" Her smile turned to a frown when she looked at John and she just said "So we all know what we're going to do?" At everyone's nod, she cut the link. Ellie tried to apologise to John, but he just told her that it was alright. To lighten the mood, Sarah said "Maybe I should rethink this wedding, the thought of having John Casey as a brother in law is a little scary, no, hell, it's terrifying!" Most of the laughter that followed was at John's deer in the headlights look that the thought of being married and having the Ice Queen as a sister in law generated.

Ellie got out the blood they needed to set the scene from from their medical centre and took it home that afternoon. Their fridge looked a little odd, to say the least, with the food rearranged to make room for about thirteen litres of blood.

As Ellie was heading out for her night with the girls, Chuck gave her a hug and a kiss and begged her to be careful, but she told him that she'd be fine, she'd have a few drinks, pretend to be much drunker than she was and arrange to stay at one of her friend's places for the night, she certainly wasn't going to be picking up any guys and taking them home. She grinned at him then, saying "After all, I've got something far better waiting for me when I get back!" He pretended to gag at that, but grinned "Yeah, you do!"

She hesitated then and said "What Sarah said, it was just a joke, but how would you feel if it became true?" He looked at her and saw she was serious, so he gave her a serious answer "I'd be happy for you, both of you, you deserve the best in the world, and John's just about the best man I know, so yeah, it'd be great" and gave her another hug before she left.

* * *

Graham had cued up his picked agents and techs as soon as they started hunting for the cipher, so he had them all waiting in D.C. when the cipher arrived. He expected that Beckman would be have something planned as well, he wasn't making the mistake of underestimating that pint sized bitch again, so he moved his people into the Intersect facility at 0500 D.C. time to get the drop on her. His people took over the Intersect building and his techs started organising the upload. Normally Graham would have delegated like this to someone else, but this was his big triumph and he wasn't about to be denied his moment, so he entered the command and signalled the agents to remove their stupid sunglasses 'At 05:30 in the morning, inside, really? Christ!' as he put the Intersect filtering safety glasses on and smiled to himself as he punched the 'Enter' key.

When ' _FULCRUM THANKS YOU_ _'_ flashed up on the screen, Graham didn't have time to get more than "Oh Fuck!" out before a massive power surge surged through the entire system, totally frying everything, including the frail human bodies that happened to be in the building at the time.

Apparently Fulcrum had some competent techs, because they'd created a fake cipher that they'd put out there with fake Fulcrum agents guarding it to be recovered by the NSA and CIA. This fake cipher was hard coded to send calls hunting through the system, looking for the SCADA gateways on the system. When they found them they took them over, disabled the alarms and controls and initiated a massive power surge though system to wipe out the entire computing environment and set back the NSA/CIA Intersect efforts by a few years. The fact that the power surge also turned any human beings who happened to be in the Intersect building into crispy critters was pure synchronicity as far as they were concerned, as they hadn't considered that aspect at all.

General Diane Beckman and anyone else with any authority who was connected to the Intersect Project was rousted from their beds within minutes of the Intersect systems being wiped out at 0530 D.C. time and everyone converged on the Intersect facility. The only people left alive at the facility were the CIA agents who were on guard outside, everyone in the building was fried. As soon as she had a good idea of what had happened, she called Casey and told him to call off the fake termination and get over to Chuck's so she could talk to them together.

Chuck was still working when Casey came knocking on the door of his room, and they called Aunt D back from there. There was considerable celebration when she informed them that from what the CIA Agents told them as they were trying to talk their way out of the predicament that they were in, Director Graham and about twenty CIA Agents and techs were completely fried when the power surge went through the building, they'd have to do DNA testing on the remains to be certain, but it appeared that Graham was no longer a problem for them. Their enthusiasm was, of course, rather dampened when she told them that there were also about a dozen NSA guards who'd been tied up in the building who'd been fried as well.

While he knew that Sarah had been quite serious with her threats to anyone who disturbed her sleep, Chuck thought she'd want to know about this straight away, so he called her at 0300 L.A. time to tell her. She wasn't at all impressed to be woken at first, but when what had happened sunk in, she said she'd be there in fifteen minutes and hung up. Thinking about that, Chuck picked up his phone again and called Ellie, telling her just enough to let her know what happened. The moment she understood, she dropped her drunken slur and said that she'd be home in thirty to forty minutes.

* * *

Things were a lot quieter for the next couple of weeks, they were still processing intel for the Intersect project, but they hadn't heard anything from the CIA as the senior people had been all tied up in the infighting over who was going to get the nod as the Acting DCIA up until that person was named. They did take advantage of the CIA's upheaval in this period to send in a joint FBI and military team to arrest the four CIA techs who went by the hacker names of The Mongol, Haxman, The Krait and Gimli for hacking into highly classified military systems and drag them away to be buried in a black site somewhere.

Even though they didn't believe that anyone at the CIA was organised enough to be on top of anything at the moment, especially the old fool who'd been named as the Acting DCIA, it was decided that Sarah should keep up appearances in case she was being monitored, so she was going back to her apartment Maison23, for a while at least, most nights after work.

As she got to the apartment, Sarah was dead tired after the day she'd had, she just wanted to grab a change of clothes and slip out the back way to go to Chuck's. As she opened the door though, she sensed that something was wrong, so she'd dropped her bag and had her pistol in her hand by the time the door swung open, to reveal Bryce Larkin laying on her bed with a smug smile on his face.

Without lowering her pistol, she asked "What are you doing here Bryce?

"Close that door before you let everyone know I'm here!"

"Answer the question, what, are, you, doing, here?"

"I came across some important intel and I'm here because I'm the only one who can pull off the mission, now get in here and close that door!"

Not moving an inch, Sarah said "That doesn't explain what you're doing here in my apartment!"

"I'm deep cover, so I can't be seen getting a hotel room, that means that I'll have to stay with you Mrs Anderson."

As he said this line, his gloating smile grew wider and more lascivious, he actually thought that she was going to let him get away with this? Chuck was right, he WAS brain damaged!

"Well you may have problems getting a hotel room, but you certainly won't be staying with me!"

With that she grabbed her bag, slammed the door and ran off before he could move, sending a text to Chuck to ask him to meet her at Quixote House immediately before she jumped into her Porsche and took off.

Chuck had to close a few things down before he left, so she was already downstairs in the Dungeon when he arrived. When he walked in, he could see that she was upset and asked "What's wrong Sarah?" but he was gobsmacked when she said "Larkin's in my apartment and he told me he's here to do a mission, he's obviously set something up so that I'll have to work with him because he's too confident." He pulled her into his arms, and once she'd regained a bit of her composure he initiated a link to Aunt D. The second her image came up he growled at her "What the fuck's going on?"

She was taken aback at that, but took in Sarah's state and realised what must have happened.

"Oh no, that slimy bastard's already there, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is, why didn't you tell us about it?"

"Because I only got the information myself five minutes ago and I was informed that he wouldn't be arriving in L.A. until tomorrow!"

Chuck was still aggravated, but Sarah looked up at him and said "Chuck, stop, this isn't Auntie Di's fault." She turned her head to look at the screen.

"I was upset when I got to my apartment to find him there, and the way he was calling me Mrs Anderson says that he's set something up to make me work with him."

"I'm so sorry Sarah, but as I said, I only got this five minutes ago from the Acting DCIA and I haven't even had time to call him and tell him what he can do with his demands yet, this is what I received."

She brought up a window with the message she'd received. "Larkin supposedly intercepted intel that Fulcrum has stolen a chip with an encrypted file containing highly sensitive information that was intended to be used for a refresh of the Intersect data. That file is with this Von Hayes to be decrypted. It reportedly includes the cover identities for many of our agents"

"Obviously Larkin has someone convinced that he's the only one who can recover it and that he needs his old partner to work with him on this mission. Their problem, though, is that they obviously don't know about the mandates that are in place to ensure that they can't interfere with our team, but we're going to educate them about that with the DNI's help. Stay on the line, I'm cutting the feeds from you while I call this bastard."

 **A/N: According to their 'official' ages, Casey's only 7-8 years older than Ellie, that's not so significant a difference, and in my world his 'true' personality is allowed to show more, so it's not just Carina who sees what a catch he is. If people still need the brain bleach, have at it, wusses ;)**


	11. Twice The Fun

**Wow, I didn't seem to lose as many people as I though, so I may as well continue with the new couple ;)**

 **This one's generally fluffier. May not be many's cup of tea.**

 **NB: On Casey/John, it's much the same scenario as Sarah/Sammie, professionally, it's Casey, privately it's John, or Johnny in Carina's and his mother's case.**

 **Usual disclaimers for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this ain't real.**

* * *

When Aunt D cut the feed from them, she called the Acting DCIA, using the speaker phone "Director, General Diane Beckman, I just received your email, but I'm afraid that I cannot allow this mission to proceed as you have requested."

"You can't allow? Have you forgotten who you're talking to Beckman? You damn well better ensure that this mission is conducted exactly as I have INSTRUCTED, or you'll be out of your job before lunch, and I can assure you that the Director of the NSA will be hearing about this!"

"Obviously you haven't read the mandates of the Human Intersect Project Director, the only people who have the authority to give me orders on how to handle personnel assigned to the Intersect Project are the DNI and the President. If you check Director Graham's files you'll find his copy of the mandates."

"I don't care about your damned project, and I'm not about to waste my time looking for any paperwork, or waste any more time talking to you, I'll just send in Walker with Larkin and do without the rest of your damned team!"

"No, you won't I'm afraid Director, under the mandate from the DNI no-one assigned to the Intersect team may be given any missions outside of the Intersect Team."

"You're on thin ice woman, Walker is CIA and she'll do exactly what I tell her to!"

"As I've already advised you Director, find Director Graham's copy of the mandate and you will see why that is NOT going to happen, Agent Walker will NOT be doing any mission with Agent Larkin unless we receive specific orders from the DNI or the President. In the meantime, I must insist that you recall Agent Larkin from Los Angeles. Even though you advised me that he would not arrive in Los Angeles until tomorrow, he is in fact here now and he has already broken into Agent Walker's private residence and TOLD her that he was staying with her. Agent Walker was forced to find alternate accommodation for herself as he wouldn't leave."

"I'll enjoy destroying you for this Beckman! You don't tell the CIA what missions its agents will and won't do, Walker WILL perform the mission as I instruct her, and she'll do exactly what I tell her to!"

With that, he slammed the phone down. She glanced up and held up a finger for them to wait she sent off a quick email to the DNI and the Director of the NSA, attaching the email from the Acting DCIA and the recording of the call she'd just had.

When she'd done that, she looked up and Chuck asked "Do you think he'll let it go at that?"

She shook her head "Not a hope in hell, he's probably already calling the Director of the NSA to try and get me canned, not that that will do him any good."

"We're going to have to do that mission, aren't we?"

She nodded "Officially we're waiting on the DNI's orders, but yes, if it really includes what Larkin says it does, we can't afford to let Fulcrum get their hands on it. Of course, we'll be checking the contents of that file ourselves, and if it DOESN'T have what he says it does, and this was just a ruse for him to get close to Sarah again, I'll be calling for official reprimands and penalties against Larkin!"

* * *

She hesitated then "Chuck, do you know what Ellie wants to have with John?"

Startled by the change of subject, he just asked "What do you mean?"

"After that business two weeks ago, I'm afraid that I misused my authority as his boss to express my outrage as Ellie's godmother, and what I learned, well, it made me wonder what her views are."

"You should be asking her this."

"I know, but I don't want her to think that I'm intruding."

"Which you are."

"Alright, yes, which I am! Now do you know or don't you?"

Chuck looked at Sarah and she nodded subtly, so he looked at the screen "After you cut the link, Sarah made a joke about how frightening the idea of having John as a brother in law was, and when Ellie was heading out for her girls' night, she asked me how I'd feel if that joke were to become the truth. I told her I'd be happy for both of them."

Aunt D nodded, thinking, and after a while came to a decision, saying "Watch this" and starting the recording of the video conference she had with John.

"Would you care to explain what the hell you were doing, sleeping with my god-daughter when she was eighteen, Colonel?"

"Not that it's any of your damned business, General, but I was trying to get her to see that she was as wonderful as I know her to be, which is pretty damned wonderful! You know as well as I do that she's been dealt a shit hand in life, her parents may be your friends, but in my book they're shit parents! They abandoned her and Chuck and left the responsibility of looking after him and raising him to her, when she was only a few years older than him! Do you know often she fucking cried herself to sleep because it was all too much for her? Way too fucking often! But she stuck it out because she was determined to do the right thing by Chuck, and she raised him damned well, because when he found out that he was a parent, he followed HER model, not their parents', or your's for that matter, so his girls got a good father. So when this wonderful young woman that I admired and cared for, no, loved, asked something of me, there was no way that I was going to deny her! I wouldn't deny her anything then, and I won't deny her anything now, and if you don't like it, you can shove it. By the way, if you try to reassign me, well I've got this piece of paper that guarantees my right to resign at any time, so I'll resign and stay here as a private citizen to look after her, and you can be damned sure that Chuck will make sure that I have the access to do so!"

The glare that she was sending his way had faded as he spoke and when he finished she said "I don't think I've ever heard you say that much in one sitting before John, after what you just told me though, I have to ask one more question, why the fuck would you ever let her go to an arsehole like Woodcomb?"

He sighed "She thought that he was what she wanted, and I wasn't going to deny her the chance of finding out whether he was. There were so many times that I thought she'd come to her senses about him, but every time he'd manage to reel her back in. If she'd ever caught her cheating on her, or he'd harmed her in any way, I would have ended him, but he was too afraid of Graham to do that so I didn't have the excuse."

She shook her head at him "Did you ever consider just telling her how you felt about her, because I definitely got the impression just now that she reciprocates your feelings for her!"

He shook his head "I don't want to pressure her."

She shook her sadly head at him "You're an idiot John."

When the video was done, she asked "Do you think we should show her this, or let them take another ten years to work it out?"

A voice spoke up behind Chuck and Sarah "You just did!"

Chuck and Sarah spun around to see Ellie standing in the doorway of the meeting room she often used as an office.

"Yes, you were intruding Auntie Di, but can you send me a copy of that video, please?"

She looked at Chuck then "Is your answer to that question still the same?"

Chuck nodded with a smile "Of course!"

Ellie looked at Sarah then "If I can talk sense into him, will you be my matron of honour Sarah?"

Sarah looked a question at Chuck and he nodded with a smile again.

"I would Ellie, but considering how much interest other parties seem to have in your family's affairs, and the shared connections that you, Chuck, and John have, I think that our having a double wedding could make more sense than us being each other's maid of honour. Of course, as you said, you need to talk sense into him first."

Ellie looked at Chuck, nervous, and he pulled out his phone "John, we need you in the Dungeon, how quick can you get here? OK, good, see you then." He looked at Ellie "Fifteen to twenty minutes." She nodded, nervous, so he said "I think that gives us time for a drink?" That got a relieved nod from her and they went downstairs.

When the alert came up to say that John had arrived, Chuck sent a message to the screen in the elevator to tell him where they were, then he and Sarah went to leave, but Ellie asked them to stay.

When John came in, he looked at them and got himself a drink before he said anything. When he was set, Ellie looked at Chuck and nodded, so he started the video.

John sat stony faced through the video, and when it was finished Ellie asked "Why would you say those things to Auntie Di John?"

He mumbled something and she asked him what he'd said "Because they're true!"

"Why the hell couldn't you say them to ME then?"

"Because I didn't know whether you felt the same way."

"Well why the hell didn't you ask?"

He said something, too low to hear, but when she opened her mouth to ask what he'd said, he said "Because I didn't want to hear you say that you didn't!"

"So you let me waste eight years with that arsehole, on and off, because you were afraid to tell me that you loved me?"

"Yes!"

"Auntie Di's right John, sometimes you're an idiot! For the record, I do love you and I wouldn't have gone to him if I knew you felt the same way, but I thought that what we had was just casual to you, and you were just being nice, because that's who you are."

"OK John, I have a question for you, the three of us want the four of us to be in-laws, what do you think about that idea?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm asking you if you want to marry me!"

He just stared at her, stunned, until she burst into tears and ran for the door. That broke him out of his stupor and he went after her, catching her before she reached it "Ellie, stop, of course I want to marry you! I just couldn't believe that you'd want to marry me."

She looked him in the eye "Idiot! Well, what's it going to be?"

"Eleanora Lena Bartol, Eleanore Helena LaBelle, Susan Jones and whatever names you choose to use, will you marry me?"

"Yes you idiot! No, sorry, Yes, John Alexander Casey, Alexander John Coburn, Thomas Brown and whatever other names you choose to use, I'd love to marry you."

She looked over at Sarah beaming at them "There's another thing John, Sarah and I want to have a double wedding, are you game?"

John looked over at Chuck, who grinned at him, and knowing that the best path was to bow to the inevitable he said "Sure, why not?"

That got him dragged down for a kiss as Sarah went to leave a message for Vera to ask her to hold off on her maid of honour's dress, and that they had another request of her. Vera picked up halfway through the message, so Sarah explained that the wedding was now going to be a double wedding, because their maid of honour and best man were getting married as well, so they were going to need to get another bridal gown made, and the measurements for the maid of honour's dress would change when Ellie selected her maid of honour. Ellie called out "Tiffany" and Sarah quickly reviewed her memories of Tiffany's form, saying "Well actually the measurements for the maid of honour's dress may not change that much after all, but more to the point, can you make another bridal gown for us Vera, or will we need to get someone else to make it?" She couldn't help smiling as she listened to Vera's affronted response to the very idea that anyone else would be providing a dress to go with the ones that she was making for them, but she apologised contritely, and assured her that Ellie would get out to see her as soon as possible, thanking her as she wound up the call.

With that out of the way, Chuck brought up a link to Aunt D, so that they could inform her that she needed to pass on the news that it would be a double wedding, as Ellie was marrying John as well. When asked what changes there would be to the wedding party, Ellie and John looked at each other and Ellie said "Wait a minute" as they both pulled out their phones, and five minutes later they confirmed that Tiffany and Bry would be their maid of honour and best man, while Sarah and Chuck confirmed that Carina and Jeff would be assuming those roles for them. Ellie and John confirmed that they were happy with the requirements that Chuck had given for the wedding.

At that, Aunt D smiled mysteriously and said that on the matter of the venue, she may have another possibility, bringing up a picture of an elegantly majestic Greek revival plantation house. The two couples looked at each other and nodded together, Sarah was taking charge at that point, and she said "Yes Auntie Di, we'd love to have our wedding there!"

They were all a little more relaxed and happy when they went home, even with the confirmation from Aunt D that the DNI had assigned them the task of recovering any copies of the file that Von Hayes and Fulcrum may have, and that the Acting DCIA was on a rampage.

* * *

The next morning, Casey, Sarah and Chuck were being filled in on the mission parameters in Casey's apartment when they heard someone trying to get in, Casey brought up a window on the screen to look at the would be intruder, and it was Larkin!

Casey was miffed to note that his curses were a pale reflection of Sarah's, as he'd never seen her quite this aggravated before, so he hadn't known that her default mode when she was this angry was Fuckin' Chronic Tourette's! If he'd known the places her father generally took her when she was growing up he would have understood though, as they made the locker rooms and barracks that shaped him look like nunneries. The language had actually been her first line of defence against the dirty old men who wanted to play with little girls. Aunt D paled to hear Sammie speaking like this, and decided that Emma would never hear of it.

Sarah and Casey both had their pistols out as they headed for the door, and as she absently noted Casey's Glock 20, Sarah was reminded that she wanted to ask Chuck why he and Casey always carried these cannons, when he'd handed her his Glock 40 in the kitchen of the Bamboo Dragon, she'd wasted the first couple of shots before she properly grasped just how powerful it was.

She and Casey were experienced enough that they didn't need to discuss tactics, she got behind the door, and when Casey gave her the nod, wrenched it open. Casey grabbed Larkin by the throat and had him up against the wall with the Glock's muzzle jammed up under his chin and his feet six inches off the floor in the blink of an eye while Sarah slammed the door shut again and quickly removed Larkin's weapons. When she nodded to say that she had what she could find, Casey lobbed him onto the floor in front of the screen, so he had to look up at the larger than life General Beckman.

Though she wanted to return to Chuck's side, she knew it was a bad idea to give anything else away to Larkin and the CIA, so she stood facing the screen with Casey.

The General looked down at Larkin and said "What are you doing here Agent Larkin? Your Director was told to recall you!"

He picked himself up off the floor and brushed himself off before he replied, showing no respect at all to the General on the screen, and he was on the verge of sneering as he said "I discussed that with the Director, 'General', and we decided that, as you obviously don't understand the situation, I'd have to explain it to you."

"You see, the intel that Fulcrum is after could compromise the majority of our deep cover agents, so that's why I need to go in there with my partner and recover it before that happens."

Chuck, Sarah and Casey could see that the General almost had steam coming out of her ears at that, she was ready to blow, but Larkin had either missed or ignored it, and knowing him, Sarah had her money on the fact that he'd missed it.

"We are quite aware of the importance of recovering this intel Larkin, that is why my team have been given the assignment by the DNI. The only part that I don't understand is what YOU are here for, as you certainly don't have any partners here, and your involvement in the mission is unneeded and unwanted, which is why your Director was told to get you out of here."

This time he did openly sneer "You know very well that Sarah is my partner, and she'll return to her proper place, with me, as soon as we get her out of this joke of an assignment. Who's she supposed to be going in there with, Casey? They'll see through that as soon as they walk in the door!"

"I don't know why I'm even bothering to explain this to you Larkin, but no, Agent Walker will be accompanied by Mr Bartowski on this mission."

"Are you crazy? He's not a spy, he's a half arsed computer repairman for God's sake! This is a critical mission and it needs to be handled by professionals, Me and Sarah!"

"Agent Larkin, the orders of the DNI are quite clear, you are to go nowhere near this mission or any of my team! If you attempt to interfere with them or their mission in any way there will be serious repercussions! Colonel Casey, get him out of here!"

Casey moved towards Larkin as he said "Yes, Ma'am!" but Larkin held up his hand "Call off your dog General! I'm leaving, actually Ellie looked pretty good when she was getting ready in there just now, she must be really missing it since Devon took off, but luckily I've got the time to give her what she's been missing now…."

Chuck was on his feet and lunging for him faster than he believed possible, so Larkin convinced himself that he'd imagined it. Casey stopped him before he could get his hands on the tool, so he had to settle for growling "If you go anywhere near my sister you bastard, I'll kill you!" at him. Larkin actually stumbled back in fear at his anger, but he tried to cover it up with a laugh as he turned for the door.

What he saw when he did that made him pause, as there was a very grim faced Sarah standing at the door. As he stopped he was gripped by hands of steel and lifted off the floor, Sarah opened the door as they approached and he was hurled with great force at the fountain in the middle of the courtyard. He came to spluttering and struggling for air, he was drowning! That was followed by the discovery that all he needed to do to stop drowning was sit up though, as he was in the shallow water of the pool around the fountain. This was in turn followed by another discovery, that the bones of his left forearm were apparently broken, going by the intensity of the pain that shot through him when he tried to push himself up using that arm.

When he'd climbed out of the pool, and stood there, looking around in a daze as he dripped on the tiles, he had no idea how much his fate hung on a thread at that moment, because if he'd turned to go to the nearest doctor, Ellie, the three grim faced figures watching on the monitor in Casey's apartment would have burst out the door and emptied the pistols that they all held in their hands into him. But he didn't, he saved himself by turning to stumble out of the Apartment Complex in a haze of pain, presumably going off in search of medical attention.

Sarah looked from Casey to Chuck and he nodded, looking after him while she went to Chuck and Ellie's apartment to get Ellie. The first thing she did when she went to Ellie's room was point to the open curtains at the window and say "You need to keep them closed! Larkin was just out here watching you getting ready, and God knows what other perverts have been doing the same! Come on, we're not leaving you alone after what just happened." Ellie paled and went to ask questions, but nodded and quickly got dressed to go with her.

As they crossed the courtyard, Ellie stopped and asked where all the water came from, Sarah just said "You'll see!" and gave her a nudge to get her moving. In Casey's apartment, the recordings of what happened in the apartment and in the courtyard were played for her and she was torn between going to Chuck and going to John, but her maternal instincts for the brother she'd raised won out and she went to comfort him.

After that, Sarah, Ellie and Chuck headed for Glendale, while John stayed back to install extra cameras around the back of her apartment, so they could catch any other perverts trying to look in her window.

* * *

While the morning had started out upsetting, Aunt D had organised an F-15 for Ellie to get to New York and see Vera, so she had to go. Vera came down to LaGuardia again, and had to laugh as another person in the wedding party flew in in a fighter jet, who were these people? She wasn't at all surprised when Ellie supplied a pile of measurements and pictures for her Maid of Honour, and noted that Sarah had been correct in saying that the adjustments to make the dress they were creating for her to fit Tiffany would be relatively minor.

Vera checked all of Ellie's measurements and took more pictures of her to ensure she had the colouring right like she had Sarah, then Ellie got dressed again and they sat down to discuss her wedding dress. When Vera asked if her brother had had any suggestions, Ellie grinned and handed over the sketches and notes he'd made. Vera shook her head, once again his ideas were elegant and flattering, it wouldn't be hard to incorporate these into a beautiful wedding gown that complemented the one she was creating for Sarah. She looked at Ellie "You know, he credits you and the way you raised him for how he is, I know his fiancé is grateful to you for that, and on behalf of women in general, I'd like to thank you, it's a refreshing change to talk to a man like him, it gives me hope for the male of the species."

Ellie shook her head "He'd have been special no matter who raised him, my little brother's one of a kind!" "Oh, he is that alright!" She stopped as she was looking at the pictures of Ellie's Maid of Honour and the junior bridesmaids "There's quite a similarity between this woman's form and colouring and the two junior bridesmaids?…." Ellie smiled "That's probably because she's their mother." "So your brother's two daughters and their mother are all part of a double wedding with him and another woman? Won't that be difficult?" Ellie shook her head "Not really, Tiffany accepted a long time before Sarah came back that she'd always have his friendship and their daughters to hold them together, but she'd never have his heart, as that had been claimed before they met. They see him all the time because he spends as much time with the girls as he can, and Sarah made it quite clear from the start that she didn't want to interfere with what Chuck has with his girls, or his friendship with Tiffany and her mother..." At Vera's look of confusion she said 'The girls and Tiffany live with Monica, their grandmother' and went on "So Sarah is joining the family, rather than breaking it up." Vera shook her head "I can't see that working with anyone else, but with him, somehow I can."

She shook herself and quickly laid out the pictures of the people who made up the double wedding as they would be in the wedding "So, Chuck and Sarah have Jeff as their best man, Carina as their maid of honour and Charlene as their junior bridesmaid, and you and John have Bry as your best man, Tiffany as your maid of honour and Charlotte as your junior bridesmaid?" Ellie nodded "Bry was giving Sarah away before, is it still him, or is someone else doing that now? And what about you?" "Oh, sorry, we've changed all that, Sarah and I are walking up the aisle together now and no-one's giving us away." Vera smiled at that, she liked the idea of that.

At that point, Ellie remembered the venue and gave Vera the pictures and information that Aunt D had sent through about the plantation house and grounds, as Vera had asked to have input into the decorations, so that she could ensure that the décor and the gowns complemented each other. When they'd sorted out all the details, Ellie climbed back into the F-15 and headed back to D.C. for a few meetings, because they were the official reason she'd been allocated the F-15 for the trip.

* * *

As there was no way that Sarah was going near Maison23 until they knew for certain that Larkin was gone, they had Sarah's dress delivered to the CEE office, and she and Chuck got ready in the Dungeon's Apartment, which had better facilities anyway. With Larkin out of the way, they didn't have to cover up their operation, so instead of just Casey in the van outside, they had Casey and Anna in the van running the support, Mike outside with the Town Car, and Sydney, Mei-Ling and Rick inside posing as staff, so they were well covered.

Once they were at Von Hayes' birthday party, Chuck and Sarah were circulating, and very slowly ramping up their looks, touches and kisses, breaking their kisses off quickly as if they were embarrassed to be doing this in public, so no-one would question it when the sweet couple disappeared as everyone would presume that they were around the corner somewhere, kissing.

While they were doing this, Sydney asked if they were recording the feeds from the security cameras in the van, Casey said "Yeah, why?" "Because what they're doing needs to be taught to new agents, it's totally believable as a sweet couple wanting a chance for just a few minutes alone together, as opposed to almost having sex in front of everyone and then running off to find somewhere to screw before they explode. I mean, who does that except for porn stars and football players?" Sarah growled "You've got that right, any other time I've done this I've had the male agent sticking his tongue down my throat and grabbing my arse, and I was usually lucky if that was all he'd done by now!" Rick spoke up then "They're right, most people are smiling and giving them the 'do you remember when we were like that?' looks and when they disappear it'll be 'aww, isn't that sweet?' rather than 'lets get out of here before they decide to put a sex show on out here!' What Chuck and Sarah are doing is much better for their cover, and won't get them thrown out either!"

Chuck spoke up from the dance floor then "Thanks guys, but I don't think that we're going to have to sneak off after all. Sarah, how good a pick pocket are you? Sarah looked up at him "Pretty good, why?"

"Because when Von Hayes dropped his keys just now, I saw the key fob, and the chip we're here to get is in that key fob. If I talk to him to distract him, do you think you can get his keys, remove the chip, or the key fob if it's too hard to get the chip out and get the keys back into his pocket without him noticing?"

"If you can keep him talking for five to ten minutes, yeah."

"Great, we'll still have to take him back to question him and make sure that there aren't any other copies of the data, but I'll feel better when that chip's back in our possession." Sarah nodded.

When the song, and the dance, finished, Chuck and Sarah headed over to meet the birthday boy. Chuck hooked him into a discussion of encryption/decryption technology and practices so well that Sarah signalled him to keep going, and it was over fifteen minutes before she dragged her 'husband' away, because it had taken her over ten minutes to get that fuckin' chip out of the key fob, but Von Hayes' keys were back in his pocket, complete with the key fob, and they had the chip in their possession.

Soon after that, they heard Casey swearing over their earwigs, when they asked him what he was going on about, he just said "Larkin's just arrived!" Sydney and Rick asked for his location so that they could head him off, but Anna cut in "Never mind about Larkin! Von Hayes is on the move with a woman, and from their expressions, they're not going for happy time!" Casey added in a disgusted note "And they're headed straight for Larkin! He saw them and has ducked around to cut them off."

Chuck was sounding a little exasperated when he said "Just tell us where the hell do we need to go!" Anna sounded contrite as she responded "Sorry Chuck, they're going through the doorway in the rear corner of the ballroom, but it may be better to duck through the foyer and down the hall past the staircase to get behind Larkin." "Right, someone follow Von Hayes and Sarah and I will get behind Larkin, if you have to engage him, go for the left forearm, it's broken."

They got behind Larkin, and they could hear the woman berating Von Hayes about the fact that he'd promised to have the information on the chip decrypted for them two weeks ago, so what was he doing throwing a party? As she pushed him down the hall. That was enough to confirm that she was Fulcrum.

Hayes tried to be suave, but he just came across as a jerk, at least he was bright enough to realise that though and changed tacks to ask about his fee. At that moment, Larking stepped out, pointing a gun at Von Hayes and saying. "Von Hayes, you're going to open your vault for me and get me that chip!"

The woman stepped out from behind Von Hayes (hiding something behind her purse) and asked "What are you doing here Larkin?" He smirked at her "Juliette! Oh, this is great, I'll bring in the grand slam, the chip, Von Hayes, and a senior Fulcrum operative, when I bring all of you in I'll get anything I want. This will show those fools who the real spy is!"

She smirked back at him and said "Yes, it will Larkin!" and quickly raised her suppressed pistol (as that was what she'd been hiding) to shoot him between the eyes. Von Hayes was standing there, frozen in fear, as she turned back to him, and Rick quickly stepped up to pistol whip her, knocking her out cold.

Chuck and Sarah ran up the hall, Sarah checked on Larkin, smiling grimly when she saw that he definitely wouldn't be coming back from THIS while Chuck scooped up the Fulcrum agent's pistol, signalling Rick to secure her.

Pistol in hand, Chuck turned to Von Hayes and asked him if there were any copies of the files on the chip? Von Hayes tried to say that he didn't know what he was talking about, until Chuck pressed the still warm tip of the suppressor to his forehead and repeated the question, at which he pissed himself and said "Yes! They're on my computer! I'll show you!" Chuck nodded, directing Rick and Sydney to get Larkin and the Fulcrum agent out of there, telling Casey to meet them at the back door and wait for another passenger, and took Mei-Ling with them.

In Von Hayes' study, Chuck got Von Hayes to get him into the system, where he confirmed that what Von Hayes said was true, he was still trying to crack the encryption. Chuck killed the decryption process, wiped out any files that he could find that related to data in any way, and then released a particularly virulent malware program on the systems. The malware corrupted or wiped out all storage attached to the systems, databases, system files, everything!

Von Hayes looked on, aghast, as all his work was destroyed, and he didn't answer Chuck when he asked whether there were any external backups or external media. Chuck looked at Sarah and she jammed the end of the suppressor on the Fulcrum agent's pistol into his crotch hard enough to get his attention "They're in the safe, they're in the safe!", pointing to where it was. Sarah removed the pistol from his crotch to wave it at the safe, saying "Open it!"

It took Von Hayes a few tries to get into the safe, because he was shaking too much. Then, while Sarah covered Von Hayes, Chuck went through everything in the safe, putting any backups and storage devices back in, along with Von Hayes' passports and legal documentation, then he gave Von Hayes a positively evil smile as he took a small thermite charge from his pocket, set it, placed it in the safe with the things he'd returned and closed and locked the safe. About ten seconds later, various noises coming from the safe confirmed that everything inside had been destroyed, and Von Hayes almost collapsed.

Thinking about what could have occurred if Von Hayes had supplied the decrypted files to Fulcrum, though, Sarah didn't think this was enough, and asked Chuck "Can we be sure that nothing's left on the system? Does the malware wipe out absolutely everything?" He thought about that and said "Good point, no, I'm pretty certain that nothing of use can be recovered from the storage, but it's not a hundred percent guaranteed." With that he called out to the van for someone to bring in a bag of thermite charges and told Von Hayes to take him to the computer room "What? NO! My systems are everything I have, I can't let you destroy them!…..." He cut off suddenly as the suppressor was again jammed painfully into his crotch and Sarah said "If you want these to stay attached, you'll shut up and take us to the fucking computer room NOW!" At that, he did as he was told.

When they got to the computer room, there was a minor argument before Sarah agreed to go with Rick to take Von Hayes out to the van while Chuck and Mei-Ling set the thermite charges throughout the storage towers, and as there was enough left over, they also set them on the processor units, and Chuck gave another evil grin as he used the remote detonator to set the charges off. By the time they exited the mansion, a couple of million dollars' worth of computer hardware was no more than slowly hardening metal and plastic slag. The van had taken off to deposit Von Hayes, the Fulcrum agent, Larkin's body and the chip with the appropriate authorities by then, so it was just Sarah and Mike waiting for them with the Town Car, and they went straight back to Quixote House. They all stayed there that night.

* * *

The next day, Aunt D gave them the blow by blow account of the meeting that she and the DNI had had earlier with the Acting DCIA, including the threats and accusations he'd been making about them. He was insisting that they'd killed Agent Larkin and he'd make sure that they paid for that, even though they'd showed him the security camera footage of him confronting Von Hayes, his discussion with the Fulcrum Agent, and her shooting him between the eyes before Rick took her out. Even though he kept claiming that the video was faked and Chuck and Sarah killed Larkin though, he demanded to know who Rick, and Sydney when she appeared, were, and went ballistic when Aunt D wouldn't tell him any more than that they were agents that she'd sent in to support the operation.

When she and the DNI had gotten the meeting demands from the man, Aunt D had had a good idea of how this would go, so she'd filled in the dates on the orders for Sarah that the President had signed, and arranged to have someone from the President's office waiting to come in and present them to the Acting DCIA in the meeting. When the man went ballistic, she sent the text to have the paperwork brought in, so that he had to accept them and commit to have them duly executed within an hour in the presence of the DNI. She had all the proper paperwork in her hands now, so Sarah was free and clear of the the CIA, and the DNI had had some fun with the man, telling him to check with the DEA about what would happen if they didn't fully comply with the requirement to remove all copies of any and all records relating to Sarah in any name or capacity from their systems and archives and hand them over to the duly appointed authorities within a week. She did apologise to Sarah for not consulting her before she did that, but she didn't have much time before they went into the meeting with the man. Sarah shook her head with a smile, telling her not to worry, she understood, and that meant that she had more time to help Ellie with the final details and get her dress finalised in the week before the wedding.

* * *

Ellie and Sarah took Tiffany, Charlotte and Charlene across to New York for the final fittings in a C-37A four days before the wedding, picking up Carina as they came through D.C. After the final fittings, the same plane took them down to Charlotte, NC where the wedding was to be held, and they stayed there until the wedding, getting things organised. Vera brought the dresses down to Charlotte with a team to handle any last minute amendments that may be needed, but she cheerfully admitted that this was her way of getting an invite to the wedding of the decade, if not the century. She also brought along her best tailor and the tailored uniforms that they'd made up for Chuck, John, Bry Jeff, and the chaplain. Through Aunt D, she'd gotten enough leeway from the Navy uniform regulations to allow her to have perfectly tailored uniforms to be made up for the men in the wedding party, so they'd present better, so she was dressing everyone in the wedding party.

They had one minor incident at Echo Park after the girls left, John was working on something in his apartment when the alerts from the cameras at the back of Ellie's apartment went off, when he brought up the monitor, Grimes and Patel were at Ellie's bedroom window, doing something, so he went out, performed a slightly violent citizen's arrest and called the police. While he was waiting for the police to arrive he saw what they'd been doing, setting up a camera to record what Ellie did in her bedroom, and they got pounded into the wall of the apartment a few more times for that. When the police arrived, he explained that the apartment belonged to his manager from work and his sister, they'd seen someone apparently trying to break in a few weeks ago, so they'd installed cameras to try and catch whoever it was (waving up at the cameras). The cameras had just caught these two at Miss Bartowski's bedroom window, so he'd made a citizen's arrest, pointing out that he'd found them trying to set up that camera to record her in her bedroom. Patel and Grimes tried to claim that they didn't have anything to do with the camera and John shrugged, saying "I haven't touched it officer, and I don't know anything about police work, but shouldn't the fingerprints on the camera say who put it there." The officer nodded with a grim smile "Yes, they certainly should!" and with that, put some latex gloves on and put the camera in an evidence bag as carefully as he could to avoid disturbing any fingerprints. John explained that Miss Bartowski had gone away for a week to have some interviews in attempt to get a new start somewhere else after she had a nasty breakup here, but gave the officer her phone number so he could call her. The officer took the pair away to process them.

First thing, the day before the wedding, a C-17 lifted off from Miramar with the team, plus Emma and Monica, the Continental, and the military and intelligence people from California who knew them well enough to get invitations to the wedding(s), landing in Charlotte before lunch. They had to do the final fittings on their uniforms and confirm that the rank insignia, medals and badges were correct before Chuck and John were allowed to go off with their brides to be. As the happy couples escaped to make up for the days that they'd been apart, the tailor quietly asked Bry, who was still there laughing at them, whether those medals were real.

Bry bristled at first, but when he looked at the man, he realised that he wasn't deriding them, but he obviously KNEW what those medals represented and was honestly asking a question. So, the first thing Bry asked was "Who were you with?" and the man drew his shoulders back as he proudly said "The Rangers, sir!" Bry shook his hand, saying that it must have been hard, especially before the 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy. The tailor, Sam, nodded, saying that that was why he'd got out in the end, because he'd ended up so far into the closet that he couldn't see himself any more. Bry nodded at that, and said that as Sam was with the Rangers, he'd probably heard of the names Smith, Jones, Brown and White? Sam nodded, "Yes sir, of course!" so Bry went on "Chuck's Smith, Ellie's Jones, John's Brown and I'm White, do you still need to ask whether those medals are real?" Sam's eyes went wide and he said "No sir, not knowing that I don't!" "You know that you can never tell anyone this?" "Of course sir, no-one will ever hear it from me!" Bry thanked him and he and Jeff left to catch up with the others.

The day of the wedding dawned fine and clear, which had them breathing a sigh of relief, seeing as it would be an outdoor wedding. As they were nervous, Chuck, Sarah, John and Ellie headed out for their 'morning run' to blow off steam. Anna caught them as they were heading out and reminded them to be careful, because if they did anything that left marks which may spoil the wedding photos, she wasn't the Asian woman that they'd have to look out for! They left with a laugh at that, knowing that she was right, Vera would be a force to reckon with if they did anything to spoil all of her good work, and their 'morning run' was a hour of running cross country at competitive track speeds, with a lot of high level parkour movements as part of it, so there was always the possibility of injuries from the slightest misstep. There were no injuries, though they had to amend their route a few times when they were challenged by the forces forming the security cordon around the plantation, which led to delays as they talked to the ones they knew on the security cordon.

Many of the guests flew into Charlotte the day before, and the Charlotte Air National Guard Base saw plenty of traffic from military bases around the world in the twenty four hours leading up to the wedding ceremony, culminating in the arrival of Air Force One with the people from D.C. two and a half hours before the wedding ceremony.

The early arrival of Air Force One was so that the President and other senior people could discuss the case to split the Intersect team off as a largely independent body. That meeting was a success, with everyone leaving convinced that this was necessary and prepared to argue the case when it was put forward. Of course, the fact that the key people, the President, DNI and Directors of the NSA and FBI, all went INTO the meeting with that goal helped.

Standing up front with the navy chaplain and the wedding party, Chuck looked out over the seated wedding guests and snorted, even though he knew that only about half of the guests were in uniform, it looked like a sea of uniforms, at least just about everyone had complied with his request and kept it low key, so most of the colour was the ladies' dresses.

When he saw the Continental pull up at the other end of the aisle, Chuck's face almost split in two, as that car held two of the most important people in the world to him, and the other two, Lottie and Charlie, were here with them to share this too. He spluttered when Vicky and Alex got out to open the doors for Sarah and Ellie and hand them out of the car, though, because their 'uniforms' looked like stripper outfits. Their skirts were no longer than their chauffeurs' jackets, and they were wearing stripper heels, chauffeurs' caps and sunglasses to finish the outfits. Chuck hissed at John "What the hell's going on here?" John's tone was amused as he said "Don't look at me, the girls thought that it'd be fun. Hey, we can always remind them of the fact that the only thing to do with our weddings that had anything to do with strippers came from THEM." That made Chuck laugh, for a moment, until something else occurred to him "You know that the girls will insist on pictures of us with them." John's amusement faded slightly as he nodded. The grins on the girls' faces as they got ready to head down the aisle said that they knew exactly what was going through their men's minds at that point. But all of that was forgotten as Sarah and Ellie came up the aisle arm in arm.

The ceremony went smoothly, except for one falter as Chuck lost himself, looking into Sarah's eyes, and she had to quietly remind him that he had to say something here, and Charlie's exasperated "Daaddd!" had Sarah and Ellie snickering.

The first sword arch that the newly weds passed through was made up of a dozen Navy SEALs, aviators and flag officers in dress whites, the second sabre arch was two dozen Army, Marine and Air Force special forces, aviation and flag officers in dress blues. The Continental was at the end of the second sabre arch, and Vicky and Alex had moved from their 'relaxed' position of leaning back against the Continental with their long legs crossed (which was actually contrived to show off their legs to the best advantage) to open the doors as Chuck and Sarah passed through the sabre arch. Chuck was pretty sure that the image of the two of them leaning against the Continental was on the phones of half of the men at the wedding, and more than a few of the women, by then as a pair of incredibly tall, leggy blondes (Alex was 5'10 1/2" and Vicky was another 1/2" taller BEFORE the stripper heels) wearing that little was a sight that most wouldn't pass up.

When they reached the car, Chuck hoisted Sarah over the side to gently deposit her in the rearward facing jump seat before climbing in himself. As he did so, Vicky smirked at him and said "Congratulations Chuckles" he smiled as he whispered in her ear "You know, this is a good look Vicky, I think I'll have you guys wear this and be our chauffeurs from now on." That made her smirk drop off her face as he climbed into the car.

Once in, he kissed Sarah and said "I don't suppose I can talk you out of the photos that I'm sure you have planned, can I?" Her grin widened as she shook her head "No way, and you have to dance with her now, too!" Chuck's expression matched Vicky's then, because he now knew that she was effectively wearing nothing but the micro miniskirt under that largely open jacket. He tried the puppy dog eyes and everything that he could think of in her, but Sarah wouldn't budge.

John copied Chuck's move and lifted Ellie into the car, climbing into the other side for the short ride around the plantation house to where the reception would be. As there was no-one else there, Sarah grabbed a camera and said "Come on, photo time!" They started out fairly safe, but then she grinned and said "OK, just this once, you can have your fun with Chuck." Vicky stopped and looked at her "What do you mean Sarah?" "You can do what you like with him, short of anything sexual, until the others get here, but this is a one time offer!" Sarah managed to get quite a few photos that looked rather compromising in the five minutes before they heard people approaching and Vicky and Alex grabbed their jackets and ran off to get themselves straightened out and changed into something more suitable for the reception.

As he was straightening himself up and Sarah was getting the lipstick off him, Chuck asked "Why?" "Well you were mean to Vicky when you told her that you were going to make her wear that outfit all the time, and I knew you wouldn't let it go too far, but mostly because I wanted to see my husband squirm."

"You're an evil woman, wife!"

"Yeah, but you love me."

"You know it!"

The girls were the first to arrive, and told them to get a room to break up the kiss, then demanded to be first to kiss the bride and groom. Lottie's keen eye spotted some lipstick that Sarah had missed and she asked what had been going on? Sarah just grinned and said "I'll tell you later sweetie."

The reception was nice, but the girls' identity had been kept a secret up until now to protect them, so the First Lady was shocked to be introduced to Chuck's two teenage daughters. The sideways look she was giving Sarah made it obvious what she was wondering about, so Sarah grinned. "No, I'm afraid not, I just hope that one day I'll have children who turn out as good as them!" She waved Tiffany over and introduced her as the girls' mother, leaving her and Monica there talking to the First Lady as they circulated.

It was after midnight before they'd finished dancing and talking to their guests, and they were all tired, so their wedding night was fairly quiet, and first thing in the morning they kissed the girls goodbye and both couples took off in the C-37B that was waiting for them at Charlotte Air National Guard Base for their honeymoon. This had been the subject of much debate, and the powers that be would only sign off if they had U.S. military forces close enough to provide support, and they were contactable for emergencies. They finally compromised on the Bahamas, if the SEAL teams on the Sea Fighter (which was standing off the island) stayed away from them while they were on the island.

They managed nearly five days of time to themselves before a security emergency interrupted their honeymoon, and they thought that they were lucky to get that.


	12. Ghosts From The Past

**Ellie's wedding screwed the pooch on where I wanted Ellie to go in this, sorry, so I've shuffled her IDs, Cohen is now USAF, LaBelle USN, Jones USA, Devlin is still USMC, see what problems marriage causes? ;)**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and the real world's back there, the third left I think.**

Heading back to L.A. on the C-37B, Ellie turned to Sarah and said "You know this is your fault, don't you?"

"Ah, what's my fault Ellie?"

"All this, the fact that we're here now as two couples running this operation together, that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't made that crack about John being your brother in law which made me think about what he meant to me!"

"I'm still missing something here Ellie, are you angry with me, or what?"

"What? Why would you think that?"

"How about the fact that you started this discussion by saying that it was my fault?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry, no, I was just thinking about the fact that if you hadn't made that joke, I wouldn't have been married because my idiot husband was too chickenshit to tell me what he felt for me."

"Hey, to borrow a line from Chuck, I'm right here, remember?"

"Well it's true! You've got all those medals to say you're a hero, but you would never have told me yourself, I had to find out from Auntie Di after you let it slip to her when you got angry with her! You told me yourself that you were afraid to ask me what I felt about you, are you trying to tell me that that wasn't a chickenshit move?"

He looked ashamed of himself, which made her regret her words "I'm sorry John, it's just, when I think that we could have been here eight, or even ten years ago if you'd just told me, I'm screaming WHY DIDN'T YOU? In my head!"

When John said "But..." though, she couldn't help herself, and cut him off, "Don't you dare say 'why didn't you say it?' I did, more than once, before that tool came along, it was the fact that you didn't say it back that convinced me that you didn't feel the same way."

Chuck decided to step in before this went bad.

"El, stop! You know as well as I do that John's never been able to handle talking about feelings, and when that tool came along, you had ME convinced that you wanted to be with him much of the time. That was the only reason I put up with him, so you can't fault John for believing it. He was trying to make sure you got what you wanted, even if it wasn't him, so if anyone's to blame for that, it's you."

Looking at John, Ellie could see that what Chuck said was true, and when she really thought about it, she accepted that she'd jumped at the chance to try something exciting that might lead somewhere, so what had happened WAS her fault, when she realised that, she burst into tears and tried to apologise to John. Chuck and Sarah went to the other end of the cabin while John tried to comfort Ellie.

* * *

While Ellie and John were sorting things out, Chuck and Sarah were talking about the issue that called them back from their honeymoon. They were called back to locate and close the leak of military technology, the next generation of fighter bombers. Chuck could see that Sarah was nervous about something, and seeing what was going on at the other end of the cabin as a result of hedging around the issues, he asked her straight out what was wrong.

"This engineer that they suspect of being the leak and his wife, I went to school with them as Jenny Burton in San Diego, Mark was OK, but Heather was part of the group who made my life hell. You see, I'd managed to talk my father into going straight for long enough for me to finish high school and get the credentials I needed to get into university, but of course that lasted less than a year before he started trying to run cons on people again and got himself arrested in ninety eight. I went to grab the nearest emergency money cache and get out of there, but my Dad must have given up the location, because Graham was there waiting for me. He made me an offer that I couldn't refuse, work for him or things would go badly for Dad, and Mama when they tracked her down, he assured me that if I played along they'd both be fine, but I could see in his eyes what would happen if I didn't."

"I still had a few months left until graduation and he insisted that I stay on until then, because he wanted me to get a degree. You see a legitimate degree from a good university will help convince people that you're legitimate when they check into your background. Graham had already cleared out the money, and the rest of the caches and accounts we had as well, so I really didn't really have a choice, and of course Dad's arrest and immediate sentencing made all the papers, so everyone knew that he was in prison. Heather and the rest of the in-crowd made my life a living hell, and that's what I've got to go back to."

He pulled her into his arms to comfort her, and after a while, asked if she wanted to talk about that period. At first she didn't want to, but then she shrugged and said that they may as well, as they'd be on the plane for a while and they couldn't do what they'd like to do, so she gave him a grin and a kiss and started talking. "Graham made sure that the bills were paid, but he also made sure that I didn't have any more money than I needed to cover the basic necessities so I couldn't run. Heather and the rest of her slutty cheerleader friends made sure that no-one forgot that my Dad was in prison and all their jock friends kept pushing to make me give in to accept a pity fuck to 'make me feel better' I'm pretty sure that she was behind that as well." She saw the worried expression on his face and shook her head "No, I put the first pair who tried to force me in hospital, and none of the others were game to try after that." She had to kiss him for the relieved look that came over his face after that.

"There was a lot of crap going around about me being the Valedictorian, because the in-crowd's families were sure that one of their little princesses had it in the bag, so they demanded that it be taken off me and when the school refused, insisted on external auditors checking into it. They got pissed off when their auditors came back to confirm that I'd shat all over their precious kids academically for the last year and a half, even without all of the extra credit work I was doing. Of course Graham told me that my parents would suffer if I said what I wanted to in my speech, so I had to deliver some boring uplifting crap speech. Anyway, being Valedictorian did make it easier for Graham to get me into Harvard, on a double major, Law and Business Management. I spent the time between graduating high school and starting at Harvard going through the CIA's basic training and getting changed back to my natural look, and if you see pictures of me back then and laugh, you're in BIG trouble mister!"

"The first year or so wasn't too bad, except for that 'training' that Graham forced me to go through, but at least I didn't have to take him being involved like Carina did! I was living off campus because as soon as I finished classes at Harvard I had to go straight into CIA training sessions. I got training in far more areas than most agents, because he said that he wanted me to be the example of what an agent could become. The bit I think I enjoyed the most was my flight training, they got me into training as an Army and Marine Aviator and Air Force Pilot and somehow juggled it so that each unit I trained with believed that I'd just come across from somewhere else for a week or less, it was usually only a day or two. Anyway I learned to fly the planes and helicopters that I might encounter on missions or use to get there, but unfortunately the only supersonic jet that I managed to get trained on was the F-18, I didn't get to fly any of other ones that you did."

He kissed her on the forehead and said that most of them weren't that exciting, and he only got to fly the unusual ones because he was a test pilot. That got a "A WHAT?" and he had to explain that he, Ellie and John had gone through a compressed version of the USAF and USN Test Pilot programs. She grumbled that she didn't remember hearing about that when he was supposedly telling her everything, but continued.

"I also enjoyed doing the special operations training with the SAD teams, and some of those guys talked a lot about you and Ellie, as Smith and Jones. It was obviously meant as a compliment when they compared me to you, and I can see why now."

"After a year of training, Graham decided that I was ready and started sending me out on missions, I've told you about what I did on those, but just about every weekend and break was spent flying out, completing the mission and flying back. At least the pilots let me get my air time up so I got plenty of experience with the various types of planes and helicopters, actually that was how I got there sometimes, I'd get inserted as a backup pilot on government or commercial transports or airliners. Anyway, I did that for the last three years I was at Harvard and graduated _summa cum laude_ for law and _magna cum laude_ for business management _."_

"After I left Harvard, I was supposedly seconded to the State Department as part of the Secret Service for a year, but that was only to get me access to the people and places that Graham sent me to work. After that I was with the CAT Squad for two years in Europe, and with Larkin for two more years after that, but I was always flying off to do solo missions while I was assigned to them, like I was when I was at Harvard. Then he sent me after the Intersect files that Larkin took and things got really weird."

Chuck was thinking after she finished "You know, we should dig out those flight and mission records and use them to update your qualifications, it will give us the justification to push your ranks up a little, that will help when you're dealing with other groups."

She twisted around to look up at him "What do you mean?"

"Do you remember the meeting we had with the President and the others?"

"Yeah, what's that got to do with it?"

"You saw how they reacted when they found out that you're Auntie Em's daughter?" She nodded "Well when Aunt D was telling them that you have similar capabilities to Auntie Em, as well as your other experience, they were talking about having you head up other groups with Ellie and I, to expand the capabilities of the Special Projects Group."

"Why me, why not John?"

"John's good at operations planning and command, and he does command an operations group, but he doesn't have the brain of the best analyst they know, you do!"

"Well the fact that they apparently discussed this right in front of me and I had no clue what they were talking about seems to refute that!"

"Not when they were using internal terms that the CIA doesn't know about it doesn't!"

Sarah wanted to argue the point, but they had a few hours before they were back in L.A. and she had to revisit the life of Jenny Burton from ten years ago, so she finished the discussion by kissing her husband and snuggling into him to get some rest where she felt safest, in his arms.

* * *

Back in L.A. they engineered a 'chance meeting' with Mark Ratner and his wife to have an excuse to have dinner and 'catch up'. While they were at the restaurant, Chuck went to check on Mark when he'd been away for a while, and when he found him he flashed on the Russian stooges he was with, and took them out, calling Casey in to take them away. After that, they confirmed that Mark was indeed the leak, but also that he was being blackmailed into releasing the information, and they determined where he was supposed to be handing over the intel, at his, and Jenny Burton's, Class of 1998 Ten Year Reunion. The look that Sarah gave him at that made Chuck kiss her to try and make up for it.

As the reunion was only a few days away, they had to move fast to get their people in place, but they managed, Casey, Sydney, Mei-Ling and Rick were on the staff inside, and Mike, Jeff and Anna were in the van outside. They decided that Sarah's Porsche would be the most fitting car to turn up in, but Chuck would drive, as there was a good chance that she'd be drinking to cope with running headlong into her past.

It was obvious that this was going to be torture for Sarah, or rather Jenny, from the moment that they walked in the door, as the room was full of bloated and rather pathetic people vainly trying to hang onto their glory days, when they only had to look in the mirror to see that that battle was lost. On top of that, the area in front of the door was hung with five foot wide copies of their yearbook pictures, which was just sad.

The disgustingly perky women at the registration desk couldn't believe how much Jenny had changed when she gave her name, and afterwards Sarah needed to be held by Chuck, whispering that she just wanted to go home. They ignored the wolf whistles and discussions as people tried to work out who the guy with the hot blonde was, because they were sure they would have remembered HER. When she felt Chuck stiffen, she had a pretty good idea of what he must have seen, and sure enough, when she looked over her shoulder, the much larger than life picture of high school Jenny Burton was right behind her. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and he kissed her on the head and whispered. "I can see why they have trouble recognising you, I had trouble recognising you in that picture and your every feature is indelibly etched into my being, it must have taken a lot of work to try and change your look that much?"

She nodded without moving her head from his neck "Dad always said that if I looked too good, I'd attract too much attention and be remembered, so as soon as I started to become a woman he got the braces put on me, changed my hair colour and style and made me wear those awful, baggy clothes. When we got here, my primary goal was to ensure that I got into a decent university, so I kept that look to keep the guys away from me, none of them had anything I wanted anyway, I still remembered this sweet boy that Dad took me away from when I was a little girl, and no-one else ever measured up to him." Chuck just whispered "Ditto" and pulled her face up for another kiss. Afterwards he asked "Ready?", grinning when she answered "No, but we've got a job to do, so let's do it and get the fuck out of here!"

Things got worse just after that, because Dick Duffy, the worst of the sleazy jocks who'd kept pushing for her to let him give her a pity fuck made a beeline for her and tried the same stupid, disgusting lines on her as he'd used back then. Those lines hadn't worked on anyone but the school sluts back then when he was the star quarterback, but he thought they'd work on a beautiful woman who'd just walked in now?

Unfortunately Chuck called her Jenny when he went to get her out of there, and she'd been the only Jenny in their year, so even with Duffy's limited brain cells, he made the connection to Jenny Burton and started crapping on about how she'd changed in a way that he probably thought was complimentary and charming. When Chuck turned back to do something about the tool though, he flashed on a tattoo on his arm which seemed to indicate a connection to the Russian mob that they were there to deal with. He swore to himself, because much as he'd like to take this bastard outside and tear him apart for upsetting Sarah the way he had, if he did so half of the people at the reunion would come out to watch the action, so he whispered "Casey?" into his mic, and once he got the grim 'On it!' response, he just said "Fuck off!" to Duffy and took Sarah's arm to lead her away.

He and Sarah surreptitiously watched as Mei-Ling slipped in to inject Duffy with something, and then Casey 'helped' the apparently dead drunk Duffy out of the hall. When they had Duffy somewhere quiet, well away from the hall, they administered the antidote for what Mei-Ling had injected him with and questioned him quite vigorously until he have up everything he knew, which was fuck all because he was nothing but a small time peddler. Chuck wasn't at all surprised to hear Casey say that Duffy hadn't made it through the questioning, as he'd heard the growls that Casey couldn't suppress when Duffy had been trying to crack onto Sarah, and she'd told Chuck about Duffy when he was heading for her. Casey had cared about Sarah before she became his sister in law, and he'd wanted to deal with the bastard almost as much as Chuck had. Chuck couldn't fault her for the grim smile that crossed over her face though when she heard when Casey said and knew what he'd done (and why), whispering "Thank you!" into her mic.

A while after that, Chuck flashed on two men who arrived, and this time there was no question that they were from the mob, which was confirmed when Heather went to them and told them that her husband had gone to the feds, pointing out Chuck and telling them to get rid of him and her husband as soon as they had the designs. Sarah lip read this and repeated it over their comms links, then went after Heather when she slipped out of the hall, Mei-Ling went to support her, as Casey was out, staging a car accident to get rid of Duffy's body.

Meanwhile, Chuck, Rick and Sydney went after the mob men when they hustled Mark out of the hall. Chuck gave the other two time to get behind the men, and when they indicated that they were in place, stepped out to attract the men's attention. When they went for their guns, Rick and Sydney tranqed them.

Sarah followed Heather to the girl's locker room, but she was reminded why you need to keep emotions out of operations, because while all of the crap that Heather and her friends had been doing to her back in high school was going through her head, Heather got the drop on her. It did make her feel better to beat the woman down, and she surprisingly put up a good fight, she may have been mainly taking karate lessons to screw her instructor, but she'd obviously learned a fair bit as well.

When Mei-Ling tranqed the woman, just as Sarah was about to deliver the killing blow, Sarah turned to glare at her. Mei-Ling apologised, but pointed out that they DID need to question her and find out what she knew. Sarah managed to calm down enough to accept the truth of that, and helped Mei-Ling secure her and get her out to the van. Then she straightened herself out, and she and Chuck went back into the hall, so that people would see them leave and not associate them with the Ratners disappearing.

As the re-entered the hall, though, people were calling for 'the Queen of the Class of 1998 Ten Year Reunion, Jennifer Burton!' That stunned her, as did the women who came running up to congratulate her. She wasn't about to let go of Chuck's hand, but he could feel her relaxing. They stayed, talking to people, for another half hour and then they headed out. Even though she hadn't been drinking as much as they'd expected she would, she was still quite upset, so she was happy to have Chuck drive them back to L.A. the others had waited for them before they headed back because they didn't want them to be left without any protection that far from home, so the rather crowded van was following them.

Along the way, Sarah checked the weapons under her seat to make sure that they were ready to deal with incidents if they came up, and looking at the MP5/10 again served to remind her that she wanted to ask Chuck about this. "Chuck, why do you and Casey always use 10mm Auto guns? What's wrong with 9mm, or .45 Auto?" "There's nothing wrong with 9mm per se, but when we were working with the FBI, we used the 10mm auto weapons and they've got far better range, trajectory and stopping power, especially in the sub machineguns. As it was generally just me and Casey on operations, we changed to the 10mm Auto weapons as they gave us an extra edge when we were dealing with superior numbers, which we usually were. As far as .45 Auto goes, it's got reasonable stopping power, but it falls even further short on the range and trajectory compared to 10mm Auto, and the fatter shells mean less rounds in the gun, so it wasn't an option for us."

He glanced at her and added "And before you bring up .40 S&W, which I know you use sometimes, it's pretty much in the same boat as .45 Auto. Anyway, the load started out as the 10mm Auto Lite, we use that in the 10mm Auto guns sometimes, but we generally prefer the more powerful rounds." She smiled as she nodded, thinking that he knew her too well, as that question had been on the tip of her tongue. She decided that she'd check this out for herself, as he had a good argument.

When they reached L.A., the van split off to deliver their three prisoners and Mark Ratner to the FBI station. They had enough evidence to keep Mark out of prison and working on the project, he'd be monitored more closely than before of course, but he understood how close he'd come to joining his wife in prison and appreciated what they did for him.

* * *

Things quietened down for a few weeks after that, and Sarah and Casey had been intrigued when Roan asked them how they'd feel about the two couples sharing one penthouse apartment. He'd laughed when they said that they'd rather not be in each other's pockets and assured them that that wouldn't be an issue, but when he saw that they weren't convinced, he showed them the plans of what he proposed to build.

This apartment was big enough that they could be in separate areas and not interact if they didn't want to, there were two over the top master bedroom suites at opposite ends of the long side, each with a large bathroom and wardrobe/dressing room, and a large workroom/private gym coming off them which also had a good sized ensuite. At the farthest point from the master bedrooms was a large formal living area, with a semi commercial kitchen capable of serving large groups, and the formal dining area adjacent to the kitchen, but out on the long side there was a smaller, informal kitchen and dining room that suited 6-8 people. The plans showed at least half a dozen good sized guest bedrooms with ensuites and built in wardrobes as well.

Sarah asked Roan why he was asking them and not Chuck and Ellie about this and Roan asked John if he'd like to answer that? John turned to her and said "Because if we're OK with this, well you really, I already am, they'll love it. You see, the only time they've been separated since their father left was when Chuck was at Stanford, and neither of them handled it well. Yes, Chuck was coming back most weekends to see the girls, but it was also to see Ellie. Most of their lives, they've been all each other had, and just as you and Chuck work better together, so do they when they can bounce ideas off each other, that's why they usually start the day talking over coffee." He pointed to the informal kitchen/dining room "If we do this, that's where a lot of the work will get done, or at least started."

She looked at him for a bit and then nodded, "OK Roan, I'm in, we'll go with this plan!"

While these discussions were going on, the Dungeon was being redone according to Chuck's plans and the two office levels were being fitted out with Roan's particular style. Sarah was the CEO, Chuck the CTO, Ellie the COO and John the CSO for Piranha Security & Technology. Therefore, Sarah and Chuck and Ellie and John had adjoining offices which shared bathrooms and private elevators that went between the dungeon levels and the two office levels, and they had equivalent offices on both levels for their different jobs. Chuck's plan to let Casey blow up the CEE building when PS&T was on-line was still very much a go, and when they did that, they'd move into Quixote House. They did change their minds about getting rid of the apartments at Echo Park when that happened though, as Sarah, John and Carina pointed out that they'd need to maintain cover locations for when they had to do missions with outside parties, but Sarah's apartment at the Maison23 had been given up when they forced the Acting DCIA to release her from the CIA, because it was agreed that she was too much at risk by herself there.

* * *

In the middle of this, the bottom dropped out of Sarah's world, because her father called her. She was in Chuck's office when he called, and she just froze, looking at Chuck. That made Chuck reach over and hit the button to put it on speaker, to hear "Darlin', Darlin', are you there?"

She said "Yeah, I'm here Dad" as she came around the desk to put the phone down and climb into Chuck's lap, because she needed to be held at that moment.

Chuck brought up the system to trace the call and looked a question at her and she nodded, he was after something and they needed as much information as possible if they were going to deal with him. Through this, her father was rabbiting on as if this was just a common social call and it hadn't been over ten years since she'd talked to him so eventually Sarah asked "Why are you calling me Dad?"

His reply of "Why do I need a reason to call my little girl and see how she is?" got a bite out of her "Because I haven't heard from you in over ten years? How did you even get my number?"

"I ran into Tommy Tong and he told me he'd seen you here in Los Angeles so I asked around until I found someone who had your number."

Chuck brought up the records for Tommy Tong, which showed that he'd been killed in Houston over a year ago. "When and where did you see Tommy Dad?"

"What's with the third degree Darlin? It was about two or three weeks ago I guess, down in Santa Monica."

"That's funny Dad, because I heard that Tommy was killed over a year ago in Houston and I've never heard of him coming to California."

"Look Darlin' I need to see you, please?"

"Why?"

"I just do, OK? I, I need your help."

Sarah looked at Chuck and he nodded.

"Alright Dad, I'll see you, but I'm bringing my boyfriend with me."

"No Darlin', I need to talk to you alone."

"This isn't a negotiation Dad, if you want to see me, Charlie's coming along!"

"But Darlin' I need to talk to you alone!"

"Goodbye Dad, DON'T call me again!"

"Stop! Alright, you can bring your schnook along!"

"I CAN bring him? What part of not a negotiation didn't you understand? And if you call him a schnook, or anything else derogatory again, we'll be leaving! Do you understand me?"

When he didn't answer, she said "I asked you a question Dad!"

He spat out "Yes!" as he was pissed off that this wasn't playing out anything like it had in his head.

"When and where do you want to meet us for dinner? You'll be paying, so you better make it somewhere you can afford!"

"What? I thought…. Never mind, what about the Marriot at seven tonight?"

"Fine, what name are you using Dad?"

"Name? Oh, Jack Burton."

"Well I guess it's lucky that I'm still using Jenny Burton then, isn't it? We'll see you there, goodbye" with that she hung up.

Chuck held her for a while, and when she'd settled down, he said "Well I guess we know how Graham thought he was going to control you now."

"What? Oh, of course, yes! He must have had him released to try and get him to connect with me."

The phone trace put Jack at the Marriot, which explained why he chose it for dinner, to put it on his tab. Chuck dug out the records of what had happened with her father, and sure enough, something had been triggered to release him from prison over a month ago, they didn't bother back tracing the orders as they knew that Graham had been behind it.

* * *

They did have the CIA's records on Joe Blake and his various aliases now though, as the DNI had put the fear of god into the Acting DCIA, so Joe's records were included as part of the records that had been cleaned out and handed over as they had references to Sarah's aliases in them. Emma's description of Joe as a spy was pretty accurate, going by those records, and it was chilling to see how easily the CIA had tracked him and Sarah through his numerous screw ups. They also found another piece of information that they could never tell Emma, which was that the initial intent of leaving them out there and not enacting the outstanding termination order on Joe was to use them as bait to try and trap her.

By the time Sarah was ten, though, they were tracking her for her own sake, as they could see that she'd acquired her mother's brain, as well as the few good parts of her father. The reason that they'd arrested her father and grabbed her when she was sixteen was that she'd given them a scare when she convinced him to go straight for nearly a year, as they'd managed to drop off the radar. That had made Graham decide that he wasn't going to let her get away again, so he pulled the plug on her father at that point.

Seeing the stupid things that Jack had done to get himself caught that last time infuriated Sarah, especially when she thought everything she'd been put through after Graham got his hands on her, so she wasn't in the mood to take any shit from him that night.

They knew that Jack was trying to play an angle here, and they decided to dangle some bait out there to see how he bit, so Chuck wore his Armani suit and Sarah wore a dress and shoes in a similar price range, and they took Sarah's Porsche, which the CIA hadn't decided to reclaim as yet. They smiled at each other to see him dressed at a similar level, knowing that he'd have had to pull off a con to get that suit, his ego must be out of control though if he thought he could pull off a con on his daughter!

* * *

Jack was still trying to keep up the same act he had when he called Sarah, regaling Chuck with tales of all the fun adventures that Sarah had had as a kid, until Sarah lost it "Yeah Dad, it was REAL fun having 'Uncle Frank's hand in my panties whenever he could when I was eight, and have all of your other pervert friends squeezing my bottom and wanting me to sit on their lap or take me to their room to 'give me a present'! The only thing that saved me from your friends was the other people in the game who taught me how to use knives and use other ways to hurt the ones who wanted to interfere with me so I could look after myself a bit!" He tried to say that he didn't know anything about that until she fixed him with a look, "Don't even try that! You know as well as I do that you knew what was going on, but you just wouldn't do more than make a half arsed complaint about it because you were more worried about the cons you were trying to run with them than you were about what happened to me!"

She'd had enough of his games, so she said "I'm done with this, tell me what you want and who gave you my phone number now!" He tried to evade both questions until she told Chuck they were going "No, wait! Look, I need money to give me a stake to get myself started again, and some help as well, and I figured that I just spent ten years in prison because you wanted to stay in one place to finish school, you should be willing to help me out here. Someone came to see me when I was being released and told me you were doing well here in Los Angeles and gave me your number."

Sarah was ready to go across the table and take him apart at that, but Chuck kissed her and calmed her, his face changing as he turned to face her father. "No, you didn't just spend ten years in prison because of what Jenny wanted to finish school Jack, you went to prison because you went back to trying to be a conman and you sucked at it, though the fact that you'd dropped off the radar when she managed to convince you to go straight for nearly a year was what made your friend, Graham, pull plug on you, so she doesn't owe you a fucking thing, in fact she's quite within her rights to want you dead for what was done to her because you were stupid enough to get yourself caught!"

Jack was enraged, spitting as he leant across the table "Who do you think you fucking are, talking to me like that? Do you know what they did to me in there?"

He shut up and almost pissed himself when Chuck moved faster than he believed was possible to grab the finger he was pointing at him, and it felt like his finger was being crushed in a vice. Chuck's words were mild enough, but the way he was crushing Jack's finger, his tone, and his eyes told a different story. Jack had seen eyes like that inside, and the people being looked at usually ended up very hurt, or dead. "Oh I'm my mother's son, don't you remember me Uncle Joe? Frost's little boy, Charlie?" Jack DID piss himself that time, and he whispered "Mary was Frost?" but his relief when Chuck said "No" was short lived, as he continued "Mom IS Frost!"

Sarah's sweet little girl voice didn't belie the rage in her eyes as she said "And Charlie's far more than his Mama ever was Daddy, in fact, we BOTH are! But more to the point, we've both got at least a few hundred times the kill count that YOU do, so watch your tone!"

Chuck looked at her and she indicated for him to continue, as he was more likely to stay in control, he kissed her and turned back to Jack tweaking the finger that he was still crushing in his grip to get his attention. "Where were we? Oh yes, no, I neither know nor care what was done to you, because I know for a fact that it was only a very tiny fraction of what was done to my Sammie over the past ten years because of your stupidity and self centred arrogance, and the fact that you never cared what happened to her. You remember how you made sure that she had no money to get away from there when she was sixteen, because you immediately gave up the locations of all the money caches and accounts to Graham? Do you know or care what Graham has had done to her ever since he got his hands on her because of that? How she was a virgin when she started being raped in all sorts of ways to TRAIN her in what she was expected to do for him to protect you and Auntie Em? Or how she's had to sleep with the scum of the earth, and torture and kill people just to stay alive, and keep you alive? No, I didn't think so!"

The smell was getting worse, as Jack had by now fouled himself as well, but Chuck continued. "We are quite aware that the 'someone' who visited you was Graham! You fuckin' retard, he only released you in hope that Sammie may have forgiven you for everything that you did to her, so he could use you to try and force her to do more for him, and like a good little dog you ran straight here and started yapping! So here's what's going to happen Uncle Joe, we aren't going to help you in any way, shape, or form. You're going to leave L.A. immediately, you aren't going to try and contact Sammie EVER again, and you're NEVER going to mention any of us from the old days to ANYONE, not my family, or your's, or any of Auntie Em's friends! If you fail to follow these instructions to the letter, I promise that I'll find you, and I'll get to you no matter where you are, and when I do, well I can assure you that what happened to you in prison will be a fond memory for you, do you understand?"

Jack was staring at him in horror, though it was purely about what would happen to HIM, of course, and when he didn't answer Chuck tweaked the finger in his grip again "I asked you a question!" "Yes! Yes, I understand!" the smile that Chuck gave him then terrified Jack, as did his next words. "Now I know that you're still labouring under the mistaken belief that you're smarter than the rest of us, so I've done something to give you an incentive to go straight. You see, the CIA still has an outstanding termination order on you, it was put on hold but I took the liberty of reactivating it, and I've also updated and cross-linked all of your aliases and details in their and all the law enforcement databases, and added a few outstanding warrants. That means that if you try getting back into the con game again and any queries about your description or anything else go into the system, alerts will be lighting up all over the place."

"If you're lucky the local police will find you before the CIA or any other feds, and the CIA will decide to just let you rot in jail for the rest of your life, but after what Sammie just told us, I'll be updating your details again to show you as a child sex offender, so if I were you I'd avoid that too. You know I find it delicious that the only place that true justice is dealt to child sex offenders is in prison itself? I have a theory about that, you see I believe that most men, present company excluded of course, truly care for their children, and they worry about what might happen to their children when the system releases monsters who prey on innocent children into society, so they do their best to ensure that those monsters don't survive to prey on any more innocent children. So Uncle Joe, I'd strongly suggest that you stay away from anything which may bring you to the attention of the authorities, because one way or another, it'll go badly for you. And don't forget, stay away from Sammie and don't say anything about any of us, because you WON'T like what happens if you make me come after you!"

With that, he turned to Sarah and said "Are you ready to go Sweetheart? Something smells so bad around here that I've lost my appetite!"

"Yes Baby, I've been ready for a while now!" She turned to look at her father "Goodbye Daddy, if you know what's good for you, you'll make sure that we never see you or hear anything about you again!"

They left Jack to pay the bill and explain the mess on his chair, going home try and make each other forget the night, though Chuck got up when Sarah was asleep to make good on what he told Jack.


	13. Cats

**Zondra's story is nasty.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, it ain't real etc.**

While the mission load for the Intersect Project was low at the moment, the workload was still big enough as they were following up on the intel from Chuck's flashes when he was processing what Aunt D sent through, and of course they had the CCE/LSS workloads and the even bigger workloads of their Special Projects Groups. Having Carina, Pete, Simon, Steve and Lucas come across and start working with them after the wedding helped, but they needed more people, specifically agents, at the moment.

Carina started to say something, but stopped, and then threw caution to the winds and faced off with Sarah. "You know as well as I do where we can get an agent who's better than just about anyone but you three (waving at Sarah, Casey and Chuck). She's like you, she's good enough to get out of seduction missions most of the time because of her other skills!"

Chuck see that Sarah knew where Carina was going with this, and she wasn't at all happy with it, but thought that Carina deserved a hearing so he asked "Who are you talking about Carina?"

It was Sarah that answered "She's talking about Zondra Rizzo Chuck, she was on the CAT Squad with us. Carina's right, she's damned good, but Carina seems to be forgetting the bit where she turned out to be traitor!"

Carina squared off with her "No! I remember that there was one piece of evidence that didn't make any sense at all that you kept waving around like the sword of truth or something and you wouldn't investigate the matter like you would have any time you were following procedure! You got all bent out of shape because you felt that you'd been betrayed by your best friend, someone you trusted, you cared about, and because of that you wouldn't look any further into it and you refused to listen to me whenever I tried to point out the holes in the story!"

Sarah stood there, unable to speak, because now that she'd been released from her fixation on the betrayal three years ago, she realised that Carina was right, she also remembered how many times Carina had told her all this back then and she'd refused to listen. She looked at Chuck with tears in her eyes as she acknowledged what she'd done. He pulled her into his arms as she cried. When she'd settled down, they sat and Chuck said "I think you need to tell me the story behind this."

Sarah and Carina swapped back and forth as they spent the next couple of hours recounting the events that led up to Sarah arresting her best friend in the aftermath of the massacre that wiped out most of their task force when they walked into an ambush because the other side had been tipped off and were waiting for them with a superior force, and the fallout after that which tore the CAT Squad apart. When they were done, Sarah shook her head "But even if I've accepted that I was wrong and want to make things right, there's no way of proving it, and she'll never forgive me for how I turned on her!"

Carina shook her head with a smile "You know Blondie, sometimes you're the dumbest smart person I know, we'll get the proof of what happened and you can explain it to Zondra, I'm sure she'll come around, after all she lost her best friend too!"

"How are we going to get proof of what's happening when we couldn't before? Pete and the others went through everything at the time and they couldn't find any proof! And what if Zondra doesn't WANT to sort things out?"

Pete piped up then "Well you had the CIA's best working on it then, but as I told you that time you had that other problem, there's someone FAR better than the CIA's best, and you have him at your beck and call now!"

Carina smiled at Pete and added "And you have something else that wasn't available back then too!" She tapped her temple, as not everyone in the room knew about the Intersect yet.

Chuck stepped in at that point "As for Zondra, I think if you told her about what your father and Graham did to you, she'd have an easier time understanding your issues about trusting people that you're close to."

The look she sent him at that was screaming 'NO! I can't tell her that!' but as she started to cry, she nodded in resignation and he pulled her into his arms again. The others could tell that there was something severely traumatic going on here, but only Chuck, Ellie, John and Carina had heard the details of that story.

When she'd composed herself a little, she looked up and said "OK, I'll concede that Chuck and the others are good enough get the proof of what really happened but how do we get her here to explain it to her?"

Carina grinned "That's easy, we throw you an engagement party!" When Sarah and the others stared at her she said "What? You never had one, or if you did you're in deep shit, seeing as I was your maid of honour and I didn't know about it, and even if she's still pissed at you, she won't be able to miss checking out the man who could tame the fuckin' Ice Queen, so if we invite her and the Bimbo to the engagement party, she'll turn up! Besides, I'm betting that when we dig up the proof of what happened, it'll point to the Bimbo, there's something wrong with that fuckin' bitch, NO-ONE's that fuckin' perky all the time!"

Sarah had to smile at that. She looked at Chuck, and seeing her more relaxed now, he asked "So we're doing this?" she nodded with another smile and he kissed her.

* * *

They had one advantage here, in that they already had a lot of the CATs' operational records in what had been removed from the DEA and CIA's records for Carina and Sarah. Aside from that, with Chuck and the Special Projects group's resources, they had little trouble getting everything else on record.

A week and a half into the investigation (it had to be fitted in around the rest of their workload), Chuck went to Sarah and Carina with a strange question "What are Zondra and Amy's shoe sizes?"

That got their attention, and they looked at each other. Sarah said "Size eight" Carina nodded "Anyway, they wore the same size, because Zondra was always bitching about Amy taking her best shoes and leaving them in some guy's place, why?"

As an explanation, Chuck brought up a pile of images on the screens. He first pointed to the image of the boots that they'd found the transmitter hidden in "Are they the boots which were the evidence against Zondra?" When Sarah nodded, he said "Well so are they!" and pointed to the rest of the images. When Sarah looked at the images, she could see he was right, they were exactly the same boots, and in every image, it was Amy wearing them!

Then Chuck brought up screens that showed bank records, accounts had been set up in Zondra's name and they'd had large deposits made to them, but they'd been cleared out and closed about a year after the incident that broke up the CATs, while other accounts were set up for Amy that had even bigger deposits made, and they were still there and growing. The fact the source of the funds for the accounts in Zondra's name, which the money had also gone back to, was the same as where the deposits in Amy's accounts told quite a story.

The others had to admit that it was a rather impressive feat when Sarah launched herself from her seat to land on Chuck, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him when she did, because this was the definitive proof they needed of Amy's guilt, and therefore Zondra's innocence.

Zondra proved Carina right, in that she couldn't resist seeing the man who could tame Sarah Walker, but they weren't sure at first whether Amy came to keep up appearances or for some other reason. Aside from them, the party was made up of people who'd been at the wedding, their core group and family of course, plus people from the special ops groups that they worked with, analysts that worked with their groups, Tiffany and the girls, Abigail, Bry's daughter Kim, John's daughter Alex and the like. Zondra recognised many of the people there from special ops groups, but she caught the subtle head shake from Carina and didn't say anything until they were off to the side where they wouldn't be overheard (they'd scrambled the audio for the courtyard at the apartments so that the surveillance system wouldn't pick it up).

Carina couldn't resist messing with Zondra at first, so she quietly told her who's daughters Abigail, Kim, Alex, Charlotte and Charlene were. Zondra looked at her at the start, but she managed to school her expression after that, even when Carina told her that they had proof of who the traitor was, because they'd reopened the investigation. Zondra just asked "How?"

"Chuckles' some sort of computer genius, he's far better than anyone the CIA ever had."

"So, how does he feel about Walker inviting her old bed buddies to their engagement party, you know as well as I do that most of these men are from special ops teams we've worked with."

"They were never Sarah's bed buddies, she's never had any, unless you count Chuck, most of them are here for Chuck actually, he's worked with them far more than any of us have!"

That got a reaction, Zondra's head whipped around as she spat out "Bullshit!"

"Keep it down! And no, it isn't, he's been in this game longer than we have, he's a second generation agent."

Zondra glanced at Chuck's father "HE was an agent?" "No, but his mother was!"

After checking out the mother, Zondra had to concede that she had the physique and stance of someone who knew how to handle herself, then Mary caught her gaze and Zondra nodded 'oh yeah, she was a agent alright!'

That made Zondra look over the guests again, and she realised that with the exception of Walker's mother, this Chuck's father, the younger girls (maybe) and a few of the analysts, everyone here obviously knew how to handle themselves, 'curiouser and curiouser cried Alice!'

Some of the guys spend the night plying Zondra and Amy with drinks and dancing with them (well, Amy anyway, Carina had clued up Zondra that the drinks she'd be getting would have minimal alcohol, while something extra would be slipped into Amy's. The idea was that they were both supposed to be too plastered to leave, to give them more time to discuss things in the morning) so they ended up sleeping on the living room floor.

* * *

In the early hours of the morning, Sarah came to quietly wake Zondra and lead her away from where she was sleeping next to Amy, when Chuck opened the door and she realised that she was only wearing skimpy lingerie and she was being taken into their bedroom she stopped and went to say "NO!" but he closed her lips with a kiss and the next thing she knew they were inside with an amused Sarah looking at her "So, what are you doing kissing my husband Zee?"

"He kissed me!…. What? What do you mean, husband?"

Sarah looked at Chuck "Chuck?" He nodded and brought up their wedding pictures on the screen as she continued "Sorry, we're already married Zee, it was Carina's idea to put on the engagement party that we missed out on before to get you here so I could try to straighten things out with you" Zondra nodded distractedly as she took a closer look at the uniforms in the wedding party, and the medals on those uniforms.

She ignored Chuck as she turned to Sarah, pointing at the screen "They can't be real!" Sarah nodded "They are, look at who was there, we couldn't fake it with them there." Chuck brought up an image taken from the front, which showed a lot of very recognisable political and military figures sitting behind the two couples. Zondra filed away the fact that John Casey was getting married to this man's sister at the same time for later, shaking her head about this whole thing.

Sarah nodded to Chuck and he brought up the images that he'd shown Sarah and Carina when he worked out what had happened, at that she started talking again. "THIS is what we wanted to get you here for, Chuck found the proof that Amy was wearing those boots whenever we were compromised, and that they'd set up a fake account to show that you were getting paid large amounts when that was going on, and I need to tell you why I expected to be betrayed by the people that I cared about."

That last made Zondra turn to look at her, and Chuck pushed her down into a chair before going to sit next to Sarah. She grabbed his hand and held on tight as she began the story of what her life had been like from four to sixteen with her father, and then what was done to her and what she was made to do for the past ten years for the CIA. Zondra was watching both of them, and was interested to see that his reaction to her telling what she'd done to and with other men was primarily sadness for her, his only anger was when her father, Graham or other men involved in making her do this were mentioned.

At the end of the story, Sarah looked at Zondra and asked "Can you ever forgive me Zee?"

Zondra looked at her for a while, then stood to come and kneel in front of her, wrapping her arms around her "Of course, you idiot, I've missed you!"

They relaxed and talked for the next few hours, going a long way towards making up for the past three years and having Zondra agree to join the team. As dawn grew close though, Zondra suddenly swore "What if that bitch woke up and saw that I was gone?" Sarah gave her an evil grin "Well we could convince her that the stories she kept telling everyone about the two of us working guys as a three way are true!"

"Yeah, like that will be believable when I come back all calm and relaxed!"

"Oh, we can make sure you look like you've been screwed senseless when you go back!" When Zondra gave her a disgusted and outraged look at that she said "WITHOUT any sex being involved! Look, Chuck used to make Carina look like a nun, and I can assure you that he's quite capable of making you climax multiple times without doing anything sexual to you, I've seen him working women when he had to and he's as good as any man I've ever seen."

Zondra looked rather dubious and worried, asking Chuck "What would you do?" he smiled at her "Nothing that you didn't want, if you're uncomfortable with anything, just say so and we'll stop, or of you don't like the idea, we won't do anything at all." "But what would you do to me?"

He took her hand and said "Just things like this", gently kissing the inside of her wrist and slowly moving up her arm with feathery kisses "Ooooooh, ookkkaaaayyyy, yeah, you can do that!" Chuck slowly covered her skin with feathery touches of his fingers, breath, lips, teeth and tongue, but when he started to kiss her stomach, Zondra arched her back, taking her bra off and throwing it on the floor, Chuck looked at Sarah with concern, but she nodded for him to continue with a smile, leaning in to kiss him. After about half an hour of this, Chuck retrieved Zondra's bra from the floor and went to help her back into it but she shook her head, not trusting herself to speak, taking it in her hand instead. Then he helped her back to the living room because her legs were a little wobbly, kissing her there before he headed back to the bedroom.

At breakfast, Zondra was having trouble looking at Chuck and Sarah. When she was getting some juice from the fridge and she and Sarah were the only ones in the kitchen though, Sarah came over, worried about her after Zondra had told them last night about how she came into this world, and asked quietly "Are you OK Zee?" she responded just as quietly "Now that I've had a shower and have fresh underwear, yeah, but I wouldn't call that nothing sexual Blondie! He may not have stuck anything into me or actually touched me down there, but that was the most intensely satisfying sexual experience I've ever had! It worked though, the bitch was pretending to be asleep when he took me back out there, and as wet and shaky as I was, I certainly looked and smelt believably screwed, especially after you jerked him off, I can't believe you did that! I heard her snickering so I'm sure she bought it." As she closed the fridge and stood up, Sarah gave her hug, laughing softly when Zondra quietly said in her ear "You need to tattoo a warning label onto that man of your's though Blondie, because he doesn't LOOK dangerous!".

* * *

When everyone had had breakfast and got ready, they all headed out, Sarah was supposedly giving Carina a lift, so Carina grabbed her Porsche's keys with a laugh and made a run for the car to claim the driver's seat, but when she hit the button on the remote to unlock it as she crossed the road, it went up. Luckily Carina was still outside of the primary blast zone, so while she was thrown back across the street, her worst injury was a broken ankle, though she DID get a large piece of shrapnel from the bomb embedded high up in her thigh, just missing an artery.

Zondra didn't miss how Chuck and Ellie left the rest of them way behind as they sprinted to Carina, reaching her before she'd stopped moving, but when she checked on Amy, she was grinning vapidly at the destruction of the Porsche, so she was pretty sure she had. It was amazing to watch how Chuck and Ellie worked together to check out and stabilise Carina faster than she'd ever seen it done before in the field.

Casey came running up with Ellie's medical bag, and when she nodded to say she was ready, Chuck plucked the large metal shard out of Carina's leg. Ellie immediately secured a dressing over it, and as he pulled Carina's skirt down to cover her, Zondra heard him say "Now aren't you glad you wore decent underwear today?" and Carina burst out laughing, swearing because the movement from that sent pain shooting up from her broken ankle, but laughed softly again as she swatted him, saying "Don't make me laugh you bastard, that hurt!"

Taking in the way he gently hugged her and kissed her on the forehead, saying "I'm glad you're OK Red, you had us worried!" and the way that Carina clung to him made Zondra think 'Blondie's really got herself something special here!' When Chuck stood up, he quietly said "She'll be OK!" to that other guy, Leslie, who'd stayed with Casey, but when HE got down on his knees beside her, holding her hands, that kiss he gave her wasn't a friend's kiss, what rabbit hole had they fallen down here?

When Chuck looked at the shard he'd pulled out of Carina's leg, he swore "Did you guys have anything to do with the Gentle Hand?" THAT got everyone's attention, even the Bimbo's, and Sarah said "Yes, that was who we were going after at the end of our time as the CAT Squad, why?" He held up the shard to show the lettering on it "Because this is part of one of their bombs!"

Forgetting for the moment that the traitorous Bimbo was right behind her, Zondra asked "How can you know that Chuck?" When Walker's eyes flashed, she realised what she'd done, but Walker covered it up well "Chuck's got an eidetic memory, he remembers everything he sees, so the identifying number on the piece that hit Carina told him where it came from." She'd read the apology in the look Zondra gave her, as her look said 'it's alright, don't worry about it!'

* * *

Once Ellie had dealt with Carina's cuts and abrasions and strapped a splint onto her broken ankle, they lifted her into the back seat of Casey's Crown Vic to take her to 'the ER' (the medical centre in the Dungeon of course) and Ellie went with them, with Leslie following in Ellie's car. Casey made sure he checked both cars out before he let anyone else get near them.

When the police and fire brigade arrived, Chuck explained that his sister, an ER doctor, had already taken the lady who was injured in the explosion to the ER with their next door neighbour, as her injuries were only the broken ankle and assorted cuts and abrasions. The cops asked who's car it was, and Sarah said it was her's, but when she played the ditzy valley girl and said that she had no idea why anyone would want to blow up her car, Amy started to say something, until Zondra hit her with a nerve strike that put her in too much pain to speak and walked her away as if they were just more gawkers.

Once they were around the corner and Amy recovered enough to scream "What the fuck did you do that for?" at her, Zondra looked at her in disbelief "What did I do that for? What the fuck's wrong with you? Walker was delivering her cover story to throw the cops off the trail and YOU started to contradict her? Are you fucking brain damaged or what?"

Amy suddenly remembered the story line that she was supposed to be sticking to then "Oh, I forgot about that." Inside she was praying that Augusto didn't have anyone there watching, because if they reported back what she'd almost done, he'd be so angry with her! Zondra turned and walked away from her before she have in to her need to beat the shit out of this stupid bitch, which wouldn't be a good idea with so many cops and observers nearby! She walked around the block in case any sharp eyed cops saw her coming back from where she'd just walked away and decided to ask questions, and to give herself time to calm down.

It was an hour before they were finished with the cops and they left, and Sarah grinned to herself as she had the remains of the Porsche hauled back to the CIA cover business that had supplied it, so hey, they were getting their car back after all! She was just glad that they'd habitually cleared just about everything sensitive out of the car every time they left it, so there'd been a couple of CIA issued backup pieces in the boot up front, along with some emergency shoes etc for when she needed a quick change for a mission, but nothing specifically relating to their real operation in the car, so she just cried and carried on like a valley girl losing her toy would be expected to.

* * *

Once the cops were gone, Sarah signalled to Zondra to play along with the act of them not trusting each other again, and brusquely told her to follow them, because they had to report this and that was better done from a secure facility, so after they'd checked over the bike and Chuck's mini van, they headed to the CCE office. None of them had missed the fact that Amy tried to argue this rather more than Zondra did when she was playing her part. Casey and Carina were waiting for them at the CCE office when they got there (Ellie and Leslie were in the Dungeon with Jeff and Anna, watching them over the surveillance cameras), and Casey said that he'd send the 'civilian' staff off on jobs, so they were clear to head down to the bunker. THAT certainly caught Zondra and Amy's attention, as did how impressive the operations centre in there was.

They smiled to each other as they saw Amy trying to surreptitiously trying to take pictures of everything, because they knew what was going happen when she tried to send them out to Gaez, or whoever she was working for. They didn't have to wait more than thirty seconds before she started screaming, because as soon as she tried to send those pictures out, the active defences of the bunker downloaded malware to her phone and wiped it out.

Sarah had trouble holding her laughter in and looking shocked that Amy would have tried to use her phone in here after she'd acknowledged that she'd read and understood the conditions posted on the entry door, because they'd stated quite clearly that attempting to use any phone that wasn't coded into the system down there would result in its being wiped out! "God, that was stupid Amy, look, give me the phone, I'll try to get Chuck to get what he can off this phone, if anyone can recover it for you it's him, because he created the system." Amy hesitated, and then handed the phone over, afraid of what might happen to her if Augusto didn't hear from her.

Chuck made a show of trying to recover what was on the phone as be ghosted the image onto the computer, it'd take less than a minute for him to wipe the malware from the image and decrypt everything, but he shook his head sadly as he handed it back to her, saying that the phone's build didn't have enough controls to protect the areas he needed to recover it. When he did that, she asked "Do you have a phone I can use then? I, I have to call my boss, I'm overdue to report in!" Behind her, the rest of them were looking at each other, could she really be this stupid? Not only trying to argue that she was overdue to report in when she was on leave (when saying that she had to report the incident would have actually worked), but using their phones to talk to whoever she was reporting to? That was presumably Gaez, so she'd be showing them a way to find him. Chuck just said "Sure, there's a phone in the meeting room over there" stepping to a keyboard to enable the phone (and make sure the system was set to trace and record the call, but someone next door had already done that).

As they couldn't do anything until the Bimbo made the call, Zondra turned to Carina and quietly asked "So Red, it looks like you're the next one who'll be walking down the aisle, what's with this Leslie guy?" They all turned to look at her, interested in this as well, as they hadn't known about them until Leslie came over with Chuck's parents for the engagement party. Carina went, well, red, but at that moment, the screen lit up to show Ellie with a mortified looking Leslie, Jeff and Anna. She only waited until they'd acknowledged her signal to 'CUT IT OUT!' and then the screen went dark again. Zondra pointed to the screen as she sent a questioning look at Sarah, and Sarah pointed at the rear wall of the bunker without a word. The others were still looking at Carina and she muttered "I'll tell you later, OK?", they nodded at that and Sarah hugged her and kissed her on the cheek as Amy came out of the meeting room.

* * *

When they had everyone there, Chuck disabled the phone in the meeting room and started a secure video conference with Aunt D, quickly explaining about the explosion and Agent 'Miller's injuries, and the fact that he'd IDed the bomb fragment as coming from the Gentle Hand, the organisation that the CAT Squad had been after when they were disbanded, so it appeared that the Gentle Hand had somehow been notified that the CAT Squad members were coming together, and were coming after them, or at least Agent Walker.

When she had the basic facts, Aunt D brought the Director of the FBI (as Zondra's boss) and the Acting DCIA (as Amy's boss) into the video conference. Zondra and Amy were surprised about the friendly terms she seemed to be on with 'Bob', and how he acknowledged Chuck, and they knew that Amy would be running off to make another phone call after the video conference, they were curious about who THAT call would be to (they knew that the last call was to Gaez in Rio).

As the discussion progressed, the Acting DCIA looked pissed off that the FBI Director had immediately assigned Zondra to work with the Intersect team to track down and deal with whoever was behind this, because that meant that he had to assign Amy to the exercise as well.

Everyone in the conference call was surprised (and most were suspicious) when Amy piped up to say that her supervisor had just told her that they had a location on Augusto Gaez, the leader of the Gentle Hand, at his club in Rio. Aunt D smiled grimly at that. "OK people, it looks like you're going to Rio, I know that you prefer to use the C-37s, but you'll need to take some support with you, so it will have to be a C-17 this time." Casey nodded, saying "Of course General!"

She asked the FBI Director whether their usual support team was ready to go, and he nodded "Yes General, they can be at Edwards by the time that the C-17 is ready to lift off!" "Major Casey, do we have the necessary Brazilian plates for your van and their's?" Casey piped up "Yes General!" She nodded thanks at that and said "I'm cutting orders for the C-17 to be prepped and cleared for Rio as we speak, so if you head straight out to Edwards, it should be ready to lift off by the time you get there, any questions?" "No, General!" She nodded "Well good luck, and hopefully we'll manage to get our hands on that bastard this time!" with that, she cut her link, and the other two along with it, as they were connected to her.

Casey took charge, assigning Carina to provide support from there (once Chuck supposedly gave her access and showed her where everything was), and the others to collect what they needed, they arranged to have suitable clothes ready for them when they landed in Rio and were out the door in under half an hour. Amy tried to say that she needed to call her supervisor and tell him what she was doing, but Casey shot her down, pointing out that the Acting DCIA was on the teleconference and knew what they were doing, he'd tell anyone who needed to know!

* * *

They headed straight to Edwards in the CCE Van, and those in the back of the van had no idea what authorisation Casey showed to get on the base, but they waved them through without checking the back of the van, which was VERY much against procedure. That made Zondra look at Sarah, to get a minimal shake of the head, so she stayed quiet.

They found that the support team was already on the plane, so Casey ran the van straight into the back of the plane behind the other TWO vans? On the conference call, it had sounded like a small support team, but this was two large vans full of serious looking strike teams. As soon as the van came to a stop, men jumped to to lock it down and the job was nearly done by the time they exited the van. Amy tried to say that she had to run into the hanger to find a ladies' before they took off, but Casey was getting tired of her crap, so he said that there was a toilet on the plane and grabbed her by the arm when she tried to leave, giving the order to close it up and get moving as he all but threw her into the plane.

When they were in the air, Sarah caught Zondra's eye and nodded back to their van, they quietly slipped back to it and into the back door, to find Chuck waiting for them. Zondra pointed at him, saying "And YOU can keep your distance! I'm still having trouble thinking straight after what you did to me this morning!" He looked upset "I'm sorry Zondra, I tried to make it pleasant for you, but obviously I failed, I'm so sorry!"

Zondra looked at Sarah "Is he for real?" Sarah nodded with a grin, so Zondra shot a 'Give me strength!' look at the ceiling of the van and made Sarah laugh as she spoke to him like a child "No Chuck, it was extremely pleasant, THAT's why I couldn't think straight, or walk for that matter, when you'd finished. Now as I presume we're here to talk about what we're supposed to be doing, I need to be able to be a professional rather than a schoolgirl quivering in ecstasy, hence the need for you to keep your distance!"

With that, she pushed Sarah into the central seat and they started talking. Chuck brought up some images, and they pointed out who the players were, they had Mike, Mei-Ling, Anna, Sydney, Rick, Alex and Vicky as part of the support team, these people were part of their core team, while the rest were their pretty much dedicated strike team that supported the team's operations. These were all picked NSA and FBI special operations people. Sarah went on to explain that Chuck, as their 'analyst', would be in the van with Anna, who was here as an FBI tech, Casey, as her partner and the other agent on her team, would be coming in with them.

She then told Zondra that when they left the plane, the rest of the team would be staying there, on the basis that they'd be laying low and only be called in if things got out of shape at the club. What would be happening, in fact, was that they'd leave as soon as their van was out of sight, and Mike, Rick, Alex and Vicky would also be in the club to provide backup, while the rest of them would be just outside in full gear, ready to breach.

At that point, Zondra asked shouldn't they be going back before the Bimbo noticed something, but Sarah shook her head "No, some of the guys have volunteered to keep her entertained, we told them not to come crying to us if their dicks drop off from something nasty if they didn't wear a condom if they chose to do what she wanted them to!" That image made Zondra snort AND look sick, because remembering what the Bimbo been like when they were in the CATs, that last part probably wasn't too far off.

With that, Sarah leaned back and handed over to Chuck, reaching out to take and hold his hand. "Even though we've stopped Amy contacting Gaez, the Acting DCIA is as bent as Graham was, so we have to expect that Gaez is going to be waiting for you. You, Sarah and Casey will have our tracking, camera and communications gear which should be able to get through any shielding that they try to deploy and she'll have the trackers and the bugs, but just so you know, it I lose contact with you or I hear something I don't like, we're coming in!"

Zondra tried to tell him that he had to follow protocol, not understanding the enigmatic smile on Sarah's face until Chuck responded, and she suddenly saw the man that Carina had been describing, shit, had it only been last night? "No! I don't! I'm not a spy, I don't do things by the rules made up by some old fool who's never put his life on the line in the face of the enemy, I'm a special operations and intelligence operative, and if any of my team is in danger, Sarah, you, Casey, Alex, Vicky, Mike, Rick or any of the others, I'm going in, if the target gets away because of that, then I'll track him down and deal with him tomorrow, AFTER I've made sure my team is OK."

There was a conviction on his face that said that this WOULD happen, so Zondra just nodded.

* * *

She still looked a little off her game, so Sarah said "Zee, do you feel up to telling us the rest of your story?" Zondra started to say "No", but then she realised what Sarah was up to and nodded. Talking about what made her join this life would very effectively wipe out the buzz she still had from last night and remind her about what she was here for.

"Yeah, OK, well, as I said, my father worked for the Gabaldi family in New York, and he was a fucking coward. My mother was beautiful, outside and in, so the family insisted on her going to all the parties because she lit up the room. My parents took me to some of the parties from when I was thirteen or fourteen, and by the time I was sixteen and growing to be more like my mother every day, they were insisting that I go to all the parties too. My mother tried to fight it but my gutless bastard of a father said that we had to do what the family wanted."

"When I was seventeen, I caught the eye of the heir to the throne of the Garibaldi family, who insisted that I have dinner with him, so my father arranged it without my mother's knowledge, on the way over, he told me that this was very important for him getting ahead in the family, so I needed to be nice to Mr Garibaldi, I'm pretty sure that the bastard had a good idea about what would happen, but he probably thought that he could make me stay quiet about it."

"When I got there, there was no dinner, he just grabbed me and started groping and kissing me, and when I tried to fight him off, he hit me hard enough to knock me out. I came to on a bed with my clothes torn off and him all over me, I tried to fight him off again but he just held me down and raped me. When he couldn't get it up any more he started using sex toys in me. After I stopped screaming and just laid there groaning in pain while he did this to me, he got bored and started insisting that I tell him how wonderful he was, but when I just told him what a sick, disgusting bastard he was he went off the deep end, beating me with whatever he could get his hands on."

"The sound of things breaking brought his guards in, you see their job was mainly to be there to limit the damage and clean up the mess, so they stopped him from killing me and dumped me back on our doorstep. I was more dead than alive, and the second my mother saw me she called nine one one. My father tried to stop her and was desperate enough to tell her that it was Garibaldi and that I couldn't go to hospital because if the Garibaldis found out, they'd kill us all. I was half conscious and I heard her call him a bastard and make the call, telling him that they'd all pay for doing this to her daughter. I must have passed out then because the next thing I knew I was in the recovery ward, and the doctor was telling me that my mother had been brutally raped and murdered when she went home to pack our things."

"A couple of days later a woman from the FBI's Organised Crime Division came to see me, she explained that they'd had a man inside the Garibaldi family, and he'd been there when my father went running to them to tell them that my mother was saying that she'd make sure that they all paid for what they did to me. Apparently the Don said 'Make it go away, but leave a message about what happens to anyone who tries to talk about us!' She said that their man had called it in as soon as he had the chance and they sent a team to the hospital to guard us, but my mother had gone home to pack our things when I was out of surgery. They stopped the men that the family sent to the hospital, but the men they sent to our house when they found out she wasn't there didn't get there in time to save her."

"She wanted me to testify against Garibaldi as charges against him would give them a chance to dig into the family's dealings. I wanted to get back at the bastard, but that wasn't enough, my father and the rest of them had to pay as well, so I told the FBI that I'd only testify if they'd guarantee that I'd be an agent within a year and I'd be working on bringing down the families. They didn't want to agree, but they were desperate to get something to stick against them, so I got a legal agreement to say that I'd get what I wanted. I testified, but they got him off because my father testified that I had a number of violent sex partners who'd done this sort of thing to me before, just not this bad. As well as the damage inside, Garibaldi had done so much damage to my face that I needed re-constructive surgery, so they changed my face enough that I wouldn't be recognisable as me any more and I started training. There was no way that I was going to keep that bastard's name, and I'd lost my mother's face when they changed me, so I made up Zondra from my mother's original name, Sondra Zappetti, and chose Rizzo because it was nothing like Trapoli."

"Even though we didn't get Garibaldi, they honoured their promise, and I was an FBI Special Agent in the Organised Crime Division when I was eighteen. At first the intel I was supplying was getting results, but when I convinced them to let me go into the field the results were good enough to ensure that they kept me there. There was an investigation when Garibaldi Junior was found dead by way of a sex toy attached to a big masonry drill, but there was plenty of solid evidence to show that I was elsewhere on an operation at the time, so even though some people were certain it was me, I was cleared of all charges and put back into the field. There was also suspicion when my father was killed in prison because his records had somehow been changed to show that he was a particularly nasty child molester, but I wasn't a computer hacker, so they gave up looking at me for that. And that's pretty much my story, I had a glitch on my record when I was accused of betraying the team when I was in Europe…."

Sarah's face crumpled at that, but Zondra reached out to her, telling her that she'd realised last night that she probably would have thought the same thing if the shoe had been on the other foot, because they both had issues with betrayal!

After they'd held each other for a while, Sarah looked her in the eye and asked "Are you OK?" Zondra nodded confidently, but whispered "Yeah, but I could do with a night of being held when we're done with this!" Sarah smiled and hugged her again, saying "Definitely!"

* * *

They rejoined the group and laid out the official plan of attack after that, and people added Brazilian graphics and license plates to the three vans. As soon as they landed at a small airfield in Rio, they took off to pick up the girls' and Casey's outfits for the club.

They did have an incident when the Bimbo started running her hand down Casey's abs when he was getting changed in the van, because she hadn't realised how ripped he was until he got undressed to get ready for the club and the taste she'd had on the plane had whetted her appetite. Casey froze and growled as her hand got too close to his boxers, but that wasn't enough to stop her, the slap that Sarah dealt her so that she spun and very painfully scraped her bare breasts across the rough wall of the van did though.

She was screaming and swearing that she needed to go to a hospital, so Sarah shrugged and said "Stay here then, we can probably do the job better without you anyway! But just remember one thing!" She stepped forward so that she was right in the Bimbo's face "Keep your hands to yourself Slut!"

Amy's blood ran cold at the idea of what Augusto would do to her to her if she didn't warn him that they were there, so she tried to bluster it through, telling Sarah she had no authority to order her off the mission! Sarah shrugged again "Stop trying to interfere with people who aren't interested and get ready then! If you aren't ready when we're leaving, we won't wait!"

"But I'm bleeding, I need first aid!" She only just managed to catch the first aid box before it hit her in the face and Zondra said "Do it yourself! No-one else in here wants to touch your skanky tits!" Some people were obviously too dumb to live though, because Amy called out "Chuck…." then, but she stopped when Sarah whirled to face her, she knew that face in front of her, people died when they saw that face! Chuck didn't bother answering, because the light curtain masking the back of the van did nothing to block sound, and he and Anna had heard everything as they sat up front.

When he heard a slide being pulled back, he saw Anna with her pistol in her hand, but he shook his head with a smile "No Anna, she isn't worth the paperwork!" "I'm not so sure about that!" The curtain was suddenly pulled back at that to show a grinning Sarah who kissed Anna on the cheek, and kissed Chuck more thoroughly, then she went back to finish getting ready, leaving the curtain open as she, Zondra and Casey were almost ready. Chuck glanced back and nudged Anna, nodding his head to the rear, when she looked back she burst out laughing, because Amy had stuck band aids all over her breasts.

* * *

Amy managed to get dressed in time to go with them, but she had to keep running a little every few steps because the other three kept striding away from her. When they were in the club, Amy split off and made a beeline for Gaez, as they knew she would, Chuck got Casey to disappear so she couldn't point him out, and he turned his reversible jacket inside out and put a blonde wig on while he was out of sight. Chuck didn't like what he was hearing from Gaez about his plans for the girls, so he made the "I'm coming in!" call.

He wasn't too impressed when it was Sarah who argued "No, Baby, please? Just hold off until we have an indication of how this is going to go, we have a better chance of getting something out of him if he thinks he has the upper hand. Look, how about you move in, but don't breach until we have something more solid. Chuck? Are you still there?"

"Yes, alright, but the second I hear something I don't like we breach, whether we have anything or not!"

"OK, I love you Honey!" "I love you too, that's the problem!"

Just then the team that Gaez sent to deal with the analysts in the van closed on the van. Chuck was pissed off, so he ordered the snipers to take them out, ordering the rest of the strike team to move in as soon as they were all down. They had people in the strike team, plus Chuck and Casey, who were the same size as each of the ones who'd been taken out, so they quickly swapped BDUs and took their primary weapons and headed into the building as the security team who'd just gone out. They met Casey and he quickly changed into the BDU they had for him so they could get moving.

As they were closing on the location where Gaez had the girls, Chuck heard tearing cloth and the girls gasping over the link and took off, leaving the rest in his wake. When he burst into the room, the laughter from Gaez and co cut off, he saw that Sarah and Zondra's dresses had been torn half off so they were bare to the waist, and the Bimbo was in front of Sarah with a knife in her hand, about to cut her, so Chuck's first shot removed the knife, and half of her hand, his second kneecapped Gaez, and then he took out the six guards as they went for their guns. A pistol grip to the face knocked out and shut up the screaming Bimbo, and another across the back of the head did the same for Gaez.

Casey burst in then and when he took in the state of Sarah and Zondra, he was looking around for someone to hurt! Chuck cut Sarah and Zondra free and pulled them into his arms. Casey turned up with relatively unstained shirts and jackets and the girls pulled them on before returning to Chuck's arms. Casey ordered the others to collect any weapons, IDs, keys, papers or whatever they could find and secured Gaez and the Bimbo, wrapping up her hand and his knee to stem the blood loss.

* * *

When Gaez started to come around, Casey sent a pleading look Chuck's way and at Chuck's grim nod, went to work on him, inside half an hour the crude but effective methods forced on him by the circumstances had pulled all the significant Gentle Hand locations around Rio out of him, and they hit them that night.

They worked to a standard process, once they'd squashed any resistance, they'd go through and transfer any information off the computers they found, taking any laptops, tablets, hard drives and the like and unleashing malware across anything bigger to wipe out any records left on them. Any valuables (except drugs) would be taken, any girls or other prisoners being held were released (unless the Intersect said anything about them), and Chuck went through any personnel left alive. If the intersect said that they had valuable information, they were taken back, if it said that they were rapists, murderers and the like without valuable intel, they were eliminated, if they were relatively innocent stooges, they were told to get out of the business because if they were caught again it would go VERY badly for them (this was usually done in the same room as the bodies), and they were released, to spread the word that this had just become a very unhealthy business. Once that was done, charges would be set to blow up everything else.

They ripped the heart out of the Gentle Hand that night, and left with nearly twenty prisoners, a pile of computer hardware, a few million on cash and valuables and a very interesting Porsche, it appeared to be a prototype of the next generation cabriolet that he'd heard rumours about, with a lighter, more solid construction and magnesium plates under the soft top cover. When Sarah sidled up to him and asked whether this was replacing the one that blew up, he smiled and kissed her, saying "Perhaps, when I finish doing what I want to it."

* * *

When they got back to the airfield, a sizable payment to the staff, plus the sight of more than a few bastards who'd been terrorising the people around there for many years, organised a decoy flight which enabled them to slip away without being seen. Once across Brazil's borders, they rendezvoused with an in-flight tanker to take on enough fuel to get back to the United States.

The return flight to Los Angeles was rather longer than the flight to Rio, because they first flew to Andrews to hand over the prisoners and computer hardware to the FBI. Chuck, Aunt D, Casey, Sarah and Zondra also had a meeting to agree Zondra's semi-permanent secondment to the Intersect Project while they were there, THEN they flew back to Edwards.

By the time they arrived at Edwards, there was a flatbed tow truck waiting to pick up the Porsche, and the three vans had been converted back to California plates and graphics, one of the CCE vans had to go via the FBI Field Office to drop off the strike team members who didn't fit into the FBI van, but they all got home at a reasonable time.

That first night back, Zondra stayed with Sarah and Chuck, as none of them wanted to postpone her night of being held. She found that she could appreciate the comfort of that almost as much, if in a very different way, as she did what she'd experienced the other night that she shared with them.

* * *

 **A/N: OK, I know that people will argue about Zondra being FBI, but to those people I post a challenge, show me ONE place in the show where it was ever actually definitively stated that she was CIA? Carina was supposedly DEA even then, so we had a clear indication that the CAT Squad was a multi agency group, why couldn't there be an FBI Agent in there as well?**


	14. Intersects

**The apparently offensive part of Cats has been slightly amended to better describe the process that I know from personal experience can evoke the reaction described.**

 **Usual disclaimers for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this ain't the real world, no way, no how.**

In the morning, they were surprised by how comfortable they felt, waking up with the three of them intertwined as they were, nothing had happened, but Chuck and Zondra at least were expecting things to be a little awkward. It wasn't though, Zondra came awake, draped over Chuck with him gently rubbing her back as he quietly talked to Sarah, and just felt relaxed and good.

Sarah laughed as Zondra opened her eyes and looked sleepily at them "Morning, sleepyhead!" Zondra tried to growl, but she had to smile at that, she felt too good to do anything else. Just then, there was a knock on the door and Ellie came in with four coffee mugs, Zondra tried to jump up, but Chuck just held her there with a gentle but firm hand on her back, kissing her on the forehead and saying that it was alright. Sarah added "Relax Zee, my sister in law does this every morning, the first time I slept with Chuck, I woke up to find her here, talking to Auntie Di and my mother!"

Zondra looked at Chuck to let him know that she wasn't trying to escape, but wanted to sit up, so he moved his hand, giving her a gentle squeeze as he did so. She thanked Ellie for the coffee, but looked confused as she turned to Sarah, saying "Auntie Di?" She jumped and spilled a little of her coffee on Chuck when the screen lit up and Aunt D said "That would be me, Zondra."

Chuck assured Zondra that it was alright when she tried to apologise for spilling coffee on him "After all, it was my Godmother's fault, we've really got to talk about boundaries, Aunt D!"

"Look, since that one time with you and Sarah, I won't look until I'm sure that it's safe, but you know this our best chance to get things organised for the day, Charles."

Zondra went to go, but Chuck stopped her, his hand low on her belly, saying "No, you don't need to go anywhere Zondra, we're just talking about operations, and you're part of this now." His hand, and the way he was rubbing his thumb across her belly, was making Zondra flushed, it was nice, but it was bringing back memories of that first night and what he'd done to give the Bimbo the wrong idea about what they'd been doing in here.

Ellie took this in and brought over his and Sarah's coffees with a smile. When they sat up to take their coffees, Sarah whispered in his ear to tell him what he'd been doing (as she'd picked up on Zondra's reaction too) and his eyes widened, whispering an apology to Zondra, she just nodded, embarrassed that they knew. Sarah leaned over to kiss her on the cheek and murmur that it was fine.

* * *

Aunt D could see that something was going on and decided to jump into the business at hand "We've just recovered a deep cover agent who disappeared a while ago when investigating a Fulcrum cell, but by all accounts he appears to be brain dead, burnt out."

"We've consulted with your father, Chuck, and he's confirmed that the description of his condition matches the state of the early Intersect test subjects after they were submitted to the testing, so it appears that Fulcrum is trying to develop an Intersect, and you know how dangerous that would be if they had any success in that. We've been trying to keep you out of this, what with everything else you've been handling, but with the Intersect angle and your special knowledge, I'm afraid that there's no-one else who can deal with this like you can."

Chuck nodded with a sigh "What's the plan, Aunt D?"

"We were already making arrangements to procure a house in the street where the agent was based, so we'll insert you and Sarah as a young married couple to find out what's going on there."

"No! It would be better if I went in as a single guy so I can engage people more freely."

Zondra heard a growl from Sarah that she hadn't heard since the CAT Squad days, and she was startled, as she hadn't realised until now how much it was like a tigress getting ready to pounce.

"Don't you dare try that! We're a couple, remember, 'until death do us part'? There's no way I'm going to let you go into something like that without me! And do you want to elaborate on 'engage people more freely'? I thought we were BOTH out of the seduction game!"

Aunt D barked "Sarah!" When she turned to glare at the screen, Aunt D was glad that she was on the other side of the country, but she continued "Stop it! You know very well that you're the only woman he's slept with since that Roberts bitch and you're the only one he wants to ever sleep with again! He just wants you to be safe! And if you want to question that he hasn't slept with anyone since Roberts, talk to Lieutenant Wu, she spent five years pushing for it to no avail!"

Sarah took a deep breath to compose herself and responded "I'm well aware of that, General, but I'm also aware that my HUSBAND just implied that he wanted to go in alone so he'd be free to use whatever methods he had to to get the intel out of the women there. THAT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, and nor is he going into a situation like that without me!"

Aunt D addressed Chuck "Captain Carmichael? It appears that Colonel Carmichael is not prepared to budge on this issue, will you comply with her requirements or do we need to scrub this operation?"

After an exasperated "FUCK!", Chuck didn't say anything for a couple of minutes, he just looked into Sarah's eyes, eventually he nodded as she came into his arms, and he said "Yes" resignedly.

* * *

They held each other for a while and she kissed him, then she turned to face the screen "Auntie Di? I think you got a little mixed up there, the highest rank I have is Major, not Colonel."

Aunt D relaxed, now that the tense moment was past "No Sarah, we just got word back that the submissions that Chuck made have been signed off, Major Walker has been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and Captain Franco was promoted to Major, as was Captain Burton, though Lieutenant Commander O'Connell is still the same rank. You're also now listed as a Senior Air Force Pilot and Senior Army Aviator and have a few more medals."

Sarah looked at him as she said "I didn't realise that he'd submitted anything, we talked about this on the plane but that was the last thing I heard about it."

Aunt D could see that they were getting close to another issue so she pushed on "Well you should know by now that when he says he's going to do something, he does it, don't forget, he has several hours more a day to work on things while us ordinary mortals are sleeping."

She saw Sarah's shoulders slump in resignation and knew that they were past the issue. "Yeah, I'm coming to see that, it just takes a little getting used to I guess."

With that, they went back to the arrangements for this mission, Chuck and Sarah were going in as the Powers, with Casey in there for an indefinite period as the handyman they brought in to fix the hundred and one things they weren't happy with around the house.

* * *

Sarah had supposedly taken a week or so off work to get them settled into the house, so she and Casey would be there during the day while Chuck was 'at the office'. It didn't take long for the alarm bells to start going off, because the first day that Sarah and 'Johan' were at the house, it was inundated with visitors, and they were getting a VERY strange vibe off them.

She called Chuck a little after lunch, as the neighbours were very insistent on meeting and getting to know Sarah and her husband, to the extent that she'd been pressured into putting on a 'getting to know you' barbecue that night, so Chuck HAD to be home in time! On the other hand, these supposedly bored and neglected housewives didn't give Casey, who got most women going, a second look. That worried Chuck as well, because it was definitely suspicious behaviour "How about I invite my boss Mike and co-worker Rick, and their wives Zondra and Vicky, to the barbecue, they'll be over all the time anyway because we live in each other's pockets, so it would be a good chance for them to meet the neighbours."

It would have taken someone who knew Sarah like he did to pick the relieved note when she laughed "Yes dear, that would be lovely, I haven't seen Zondra and Vicky since the wedding, and they can help me get all this ready, you're not getting out of your duties on the barbecue though, the man of the house has to man the barbecue!" but carrying on the act like that meant… "There's someone there listening to you now, isn't there?"

"Yup, so you won't forget to pick up the meat and the things on the list I texted you, and NOT stop at the bar on the way home?" "How many are we catering for?" "Well, with the guys from your work and Johan, he's doing such a marvellous job Honey, it wouldn't be right to leave him out, maybe thirty?"

"Got it, we'll be there by 5:30, love you"

"I love you too sweetheart! See you when you get home."

After he got off the phone, he looked at it for about a minute with a worried expression, and then hit the button for the PA system "Mike, Zondra, Vicky, Rick, my office please!"

They were all there within five minutes, looking concerned at the expression on his face. He started without any preamble "The neighbours have been coming around all day and pressured Sarah into 'volunteering' us to host a getting to know you barbecue tonight, she and Colonel Casey are worried about the vibe they're getting from these people, because for one thing none of these bored housewives are paying any attention at all to the hot handyman. Zondra, Mike, are you two OK with coming as a couple to this barbecue?" Zondra's "Of course!" and Mike's "Yes, Sir!" overlapped each other "Rick, Vicky, are you two OK being a couple again?" they just nodded "Thanks, OK, Mike is Rick and my boss, and you two are their wives. Weapons need to be low key, but come armed! It's a barbecue, so dress is casual, we're out of here as soon as possible after 1630. Rick, could you pick up the meat etc for a barbecue for thirty, please?" Rick looked confused, so Mike laughed and said "I'll handle that." Chuck nodded "Thanks Mike, you take Casey's Crown Vic, Rick, you take the Honda, and I've got that Volvo, so don't bitch about what you have to drive!"

They could all tell that he was worried, so to distract him from that, Zondra leant forward "OK Chuck, Sarah isn't here, so what ARE you doing with that Porsche?" He looked at her, he knew exactly what she was up to, but he appreciated it, so he brought up the big screen behind him and threw up images on it. "It's going to be a full on RSR Cabriolet. It went to a major Porsche race shop I know, they got it registered and then stripped it right down to the bare chassis to remove anything unnecessary and strengthen the key points. They're replacing the plates under the soft top with carbon fibre panels, and putting in carbon fibre seats as well, the bodywork and mechanicals are all RSR, they're getting a works drive train, suspension, brakes and wheels and carbon fibre body panels, air dam and wing sent over from the factory. Then, when they've got it all together and sorted it's going to a custom shop they're affiliated with to be made pretty."

Zondra, Vicky and Rick were drooling as they looked at this, it was going to be an incredible machine. Zondra said "If I know my girl, and I do, she's going to love it! I just have to try and work out how to get her to let me drive it! So, when will it be ready?" "Waiting for the bits to arrive from Germany and making up the custom carbon fibre parts is taking up the most time. They're saying about a month."

He killed the images and said "So we all know what we're doing? 1630 on the parking level, Zondra and Vicky, if you're OK with it, could you see how hot you can be and stay inside respectable casual, please? If the guys ignore you when you're making an effort, we'll know that Sarah and Casey are right. Rick, can you do the same please?"

Mike spoke up with a grin, "Hey, what about me?" Chuck grinned back at him "Sorry Mike, but Rick's just hotter than you are!" Rick decided to get into it then "You all heard that, this is sexual harassment, he wants me to wear tight clothes because he thinks I'm hot!"

They all filed out laughing at that, but Zondra hung back "Are you OK?"

"Yeah, just worried, this is why I didn't want her in on this, she and John are out there with no backup at the moment and the wolves are circling, it anything happens to her I'll burn it all to the ground!"

Zondra stepped in to wrap her arms around him, saying "She'll be fine, she can take on anyone out there!"

"One on one, or even three or four to one, yeah, but there's ten to one odds now and it'll still be three to one when we're all there."

"If you're that worried, send Sydney, Alex, Mei-Ling, Ellie, Carina and Anna out now with full gear to stand by close enough so that all Sarah and Casey need to do is hit the panic button and they can be there in minutes."

"Yes! That's perfect, thank you!" He picked her up and kissed her, rushing off to organise that. The CCE van was armoured, so short of coming up against heavy military weapons they'd be safe enough in there and they could get to Sarah quick enough for support. Ten minutes later, they were on their way and he called Sarah to tell her.

When they met up on the ground floor of Quixote House, Zondra, Vicky and Rick all did a twirl and asked Chuck if they looked hot enough, he grinned and said that that should work, but told Vicky that she'd looked hotter in her chauffeur's uniform, Vicky went bright red at that, of course. Zondra was looking confused, but Mike murmured "I'll explain in the car" and she nodded subtly.

Mike and Zondra stopped to pick up the meat and other things he'd ordered, and as he got back in the car, he handed Zondra his phone with the image of Vicky and Alex leaning back against the Continental at the wedding, their jackets had only had one button holding them together below the navel and were cut to be open, so they showed an almost unbroken display of bare skin from head to toe.

"Mike, why are you showing me pictures of Vicky and Alex in stripper costumes?" He chuckled "Because THAT's the chauffeur's uniform Chuck was talking about!" Zondra whipped her head around to stare at him "WHAT?" "Sarah and Ellie decided that it would be fun to wind the guys up and got these outfits made for Vicky and Alex, most of us knew about it, but Chuck didn't, flick back a few pictures to see his reaction." Zondra did so hesitantly, but she was pleasantly surprised to see that it was more 'WHAT THE FUCK?' than excitement at the undeniably hot display he was looking at, like probably 99% of guys would have shown.

She shook her at that, but thought about Chuck and asked "Do you think that Chuck's going overboard with the way he's panicking?" He looked thoughtful "No, he worries about her, probably more than she likes, but if it is Fulcrum there, they have no scruples, they'll use or destroy however many it takes to get what they want. Sarah and Casey are the best I've seen after Chuck, but at the moment they're potentially outnumbered ten to one or more and they're severely limited in the armour and weapons they can have to protect themsleves, so they're in a position of great risk, and he's worried about both of them, not just her."

She nodded "Yeah, I learned that in Rio, he jumped down my throat when I told him that he had to hold off coming in after us and follow the rules on the engagement." He glanced at her "Aren't you glad that he didn't follow the rules there?" She shuddered "Oh yeah! I didn't think that there was anything anyone could do to stop that psychotic bitch from carving Sarah up until he burst in like an angel of vengeance and took them all out. Afterwards, he was making sure I was OK as much as he was her." She was quiet as she remembered "I was shaking because I was certain that I was going to be raped again from what they were saying, and being helpless like that, tied to the chair with my dress just about torn off, it was bringing it all back, I couldn't control it."

Mike reached over to take her hand at that, and she clung to his hand until he indicated that he needed it to drive, but he took her hand again when he could. She had her game face on again by the time they reached the house, but before they got out of the car, she kissed him to let him know how much she appreciated that act of kindness, finding that she liked how comfortable it felt with him, it didn't evoke the passion that Chuck had, but it was nice, as was the way he held her, so she gave him another kiss for luck. With that, they helped the others unload the meat and things from the car and take them into the house.

Chuck saw that she was upset and stepped in to give her a hug, whispering in her ear "Are you alright? You don't have to do this if it's too much for you." She hugged him for that, saying "No, I'm fine, I just remembered things about Rio etcetera when we were talking on the way over" She kissed him and turned to grab a tray of meat. Vicky said "Hey, where's my hug?" and stepped in, asking "Is she OK?" in his ear. He whispered back "Yes, just memories of Rio and other things." She gave him a kiss and turned to grab some bags and head inside.

Sarah was so happy to see Chuck that she flew into his arms, but she quickly recovered enough to tease him "What's with the lipstick Chuck?" "It wasn't anything! Zondra and Vicky just kissed me for appearances!" She smiled and gave him an earth shattering kiss then, just inside the boundaries of what could be easily explained as newlywed behaviour. After that, she pointed at the meat and told him he had a lot to do, so go get changed and get to work!

After a hug and a kiss with Zondra and Vicky, for appearances as well as to get the story about why they kissed Chuck, they got to work preparing everything. She gave Zondra a squeeze when she explained her reason, but had to grin at Vicky's answer "Well it would have been expected, since Zondra did, and more to the point, if Zondra got to kiss him, I wasn't going to miss out!"

As they were all taking things out and circulating, it was clear that Sarah and Casey were right, all the 'husbands' were coming on to Sarah non-stop, and the 'wives' were all over Chuck, but they totally ignored Zondra, Vicky and Rick's flaunting and flirting. When the preparation was done, Sarah had to circulate, and because of the mission she had to play nice with the sleaze bag 'husbands', which made it look like she was getting friendly with them.

* * *

Unfortunately, this played into what they realised that they'd have to do once they discovered a bug on a tray that had been brought by Sylvia, the rather aggressive cougar from across the street, and Chuck identified it as belonging to Fulcrum. The guys back at Quixote House had also dug up records that showed deliveries of a lot of heavy duty computing equipment to that address, so these things together meant that they had to get into the house to check it out, and the most believable way to do that was to cast Sarah as a cheating wife and have Chuck looking for payback.

Given that Sylvia had made a point to tell Chuck that her husband was leaving on a business trip in the morning, Sarah took off for a day out with the girls soon after and Chuck waited half an hour before going to knock on Sylvia's door. When she asked about the change of heart, as he'd been adamant in his rejection of her the night before, he told her angrily that he'd seen the way that Sarah had been flirting with the other husbands the night before, and she'd spent an awful lot of time getting ready for what was just supposed to be a day with the girls, so it looked like she was going off to see someone else like she used to do. He finished with "What's good for the goose is good for the gander, if she's doing it, why shouldn't I?"

Sylvia's smile was voracious as she said "Oh, you're so right lover!" and pulled him inside. She fixed him a drink and told him to have a seat while she got ready, she wouldn't be more than ten minutes, fifteen tops! and ran upstairs. Chuck sniffed the drink, but there was no way he was about to drink anything she'd given him! He listened to make sure that she'd shut the door upstairs before he ducked into the study/office downstairs to get into the computer.

That was his big mistake, as the computer had an intersect program queued up to launch, which it did as soon as he got into it. The program that ran must have been only small though, as he'd come to within five minutes or so with a splitting headache. The computer had already screen locked itself again by then, so he quickly went to pour half of the drink down the kitchen sink and put the glass on the side table next to where he'd been sitting before calling upstairs to say that he suddenly felt sick, really bad, and he had to go, and bolting out the door.

Back in 'his' house, he grabbed his phone and checked for bugs, when it came up clean he called Aunt D and told her to mobilise the strike team, they definitely had an Intersect setup here as he'd just been hit with an Intersect program! They'd already set up the scenario, the story was that they'd tracked down a terrorist cell (based at Sylvia's house obviously), and they needed to bring the neighbours in to talk to them and find out everything they could about the terrorists. Aunt D said that she'd organise it with Bob, and he and Casey settled down to watch Sylvia's house.

Less than ten minutes after he'd left Sylvia's house, her 'husband' arrived home, obviously his 'business trip' hadn't taken him far. That just confirmed that they'd read the situation right, but things went to shit five minutes later when 'their' Volvo pulled into the drive. What Aunt D hadn't mentioned was that Sarah had been on a video conference with her when Chuck called, she'd heard everything and bolted out the door as soon as he finished talking.

Chuck jumped up and went out to get Sarah inside where it was safe as quick as he could without giving the game away, but the other side were already moving in, and they were both tranqued before they got more than a few steps from the car. Casey ran out to drag them inside, all attempts at the cover cast aside as it had obviously been blown, but he was tranqued too before he got five steps out of the house, so they were all down.

* * *

When Chuck came to, he was strapped into a chair with his head strapped in place so he couldn't move it. Sylvia and the other 'neighbours' were all working around him, setting up the monitoring and testing equipment. He decided to try playing through with the cover, so he asked in a panic what was going on, why was he tied down like this, what was this place and where was his wife? but Sylvia laughed, saying "She's not your wife, Charles, she's a CIA Agent, so I expect that you're CIA, too."

Trying to keep up the act, Chuck kept going. "What are you talking about? Sarah can't be CIA, she's my wife, what do you want with me?"

He saw Sarah, handcuffed to a chair in the next room, trying to get free, but one of his neighbours, Brad, answered his question. "You have a very special brain Mr Powers, and we're hoping for great things from you, everybody else we've tried has failed, but I'm banking on you being the one that works for us."

"What are you talking about?"

Sylvia stepped in again "What you saw on the computer upstairs was part of a program, the CIA developed it originally, but they gave up on it before it reached its true potential. We've taken what they started and we're going to show the world what it could have been!"

"OK, I'll do whatever you want, but let Sarah go, please?" Sylvia laughed again "Don't tell me you've actually fallen for her? What, did she tell you that you had a future, that she cared about you? Don't you know that it's all an act? You're just a job to her Charles, nothing she told you about her feelings for you was real!"

Brad laughed as well. "Don't worry, this will help you get over her, if you survive it." and with that they all moved off into the next room.

Sylvia's "husband" started something and some screens dropped down in front of Chuck, Sarah tried calling out to him but Sylvia just told her "Don't bother, he can't hear you."

Everyone in the room put sunglasses on, and they put a pair on Sarah as well before Sylvia's 'husband' initiated the program.

When the program finished, Chuck passed out, and as he slumped in the chair they all started abusing Brad, saying that this was just yet another failure of his damned program, until Chuck started to move.

At that they all rushed in and Sylvia asked him "Do you know where you are Charles?"

Chuck played their game "Beneath the Meadow Branch subdivision in a Fulcrum lab that was built to pursue the Fulcrum initiative."

"What initiative?"

"To properly develop the Intersect program."

Brad was almost jumping up and down as he said "It worked!", but Sylvia looked calculating as she asked "Do you mind if we test your wife next?"

Chuck looked at her with a confused expression, as he said "Wife? I don't have a wife."

They were all slapping each other on the back as they got him out of the chair and started strapping Sarah into it.

Chuck's plan at that point was to take them out while they were occupied and get Sarah the hell away from there, letting the strike team that was on its way handle anybody who was left, but just before he started he saw Casey sneaking towards the control console in the next room.

Chuck had his back to the Fulcrum Agents, so he winked back at him when Casey signalled that he was getting ready to initiate the program, turning to say "Before you start, I'd like to tell Agent Walker something."

Sylvia sniggered "Agent Walker, now we have a name."

Chuck leaned in close to her and whispered "Close your eyes", which made Sarah look over his shoulder to see Casey at the console with the sunglasses on, so she squeezed her eyes shut tight and Chuck pulled her face into his chest to ensure that he blocked her from seeing any of the images. When he saw Chuck pull Sarah's face into his chest, Casey hit "Enter".

Even though he'd already gotten through this OK, Chuck closed his eyes too, so he only heard the cries and crashing going on around him, but as soon as the flickering through his eyelids stopped, he opened his eyes to look around and saw all the Fulcrum people laying twisted on the floor.

When he asked Sarah if she was OK as he was unstrapping her, her response was "Yeah, are you?", looking very relieved when he said "Yeah, I think so", and as soon as he had her free she leapt into his arms.

Casey came into the room to check if they were OK, and Chuck noted his left thumb as he started to answer "Yeah, we're OK, so you actually broke your thumb to get out of the cuffs? I always thought that that was just a joke?"

That made Casey look at his hand and wince. "Well it isn't something that I'd want to do often, but it did the job."

After that they went through the facility, taking down and securing anyone else that they found in there while they were waiting for the strike team to arrive. As soon as they had control of the place, they grabbed a first aid kit to strap up Casey's hand, and Chuck searched for any instances of the Fulcrum Intersect information and pulled out any and all the drives holding that information, stashing them away in a bag. He also collected any external drives or USB sticks he could find in the facility and added them to the bag, too.

When the strike team arrived, they handed everything but the drives over to them and ordered them to secure everything in the facility and take anyone else they found in the street into custody. As soon as that was all in hand, they took the Fulcrum Intersect drives and headed back to Quixote House, with Chuck driving Casey's truck to save him any more pain with his broken hand. When they got back to Quixote house, Ellie's first order of business was to tend to her husband.

* * *

Once John was patched up, Ellie, their father and Leslie started coming up with and running an extensive series of tests on Chuck to try and determine what uploading the Fulcrum Intersect might have done to him. Leslie had been made to take over the CIA's development of the Intersect when he was brought in as Stefan's replacement, so he knew as much as any of them about it. As far as they could see though, the Fulcrum Intersect load hadn't done any significant damage to Chuck, they only identified a few minor glitches which had been introduced. They did all the Intersect testing in the Dungeon, so that nobody else knew about it, but Ellie made sure to keep Sarah in the loop about everything, to save her from worrying about Chuck unnecessarily.

There were a lot of things in the new databases that the Fulcrum Intersect added that Chuck didn't want to know, such as the details of well over a thousand ways to inflict pain and death on a person or incapacitate a body, the veritable encyclopaedia of forbidden torture techniques, the frighteningly extensive and comprehensive drug and poisons databases, which listed the effects that they and any probable combinations may have on the human body and the like, but he found that he could keep away from accessing those types of subjects so long as he was careful.

This meant that they had a significant advantage now though because, providing the team there hadn't been reporting all their plans and results, they were the only people who knew quite what the nature of the Intersect program being worked on there by Fulcrum was, and Chuck had removed all trace of those files before anyone else found them. That meant that they had all the code for the latest version of the Fulcrum Intersect, which worked (for Chuck, anyway), and which actually included some new and interesting code which added physical motor skills that could be directly actioned via the Intersect.

They also had Chuck (a coding genius), Ellie (a highly accomplished neurologist) and Leslie (who'd taken over the CIA's Intersect development) to work with Stefan to redevelop the Intersect into something that was safe. They were banking on the fact that they could fix some of the existing issues with the Intersect, and make it do far more than any of the previous Intersect versions had.

* * *

As things were settling down from the take down of the Fulcrum Intersect Initiative, word came through that the proposals to sign off the creation of the Intersect Project as a separate body with loose affiliations with the DIA, NSA, FBI and ODNI had been ratified by the controlling bodies, and around the same time, the two floors of offices at the other end of Quixote house were finished, so they emptied out the CCE and LSS offices and the bunker, stripping out all the fittings, and gave Casey the green light to 'blow shit up'.

After the explosion, the police and community were told by the FBI that it looked like it was the gangs trying to get a foothold back in the area, and that the people working there had been put into the witness protection scheme. The CIA and NSA were told that the evidence was that there had been a leak from a turned CIA agent, and Fulcrum were the ones responsible for the explosion. They were told, however, that the bunker had survived largely intact, as had a few of the access tunnels, and that the organisation that had bought the property to develop in order to expand their plans for the building next door had given in to pressure from the government to ask no questions about what was underground there, so the Human Intersect Project's operations centre would remain where it was once it had been repaired and expanded.

The NSA contractors were engaged under very strict non-disclosure agreements to erect the extension to the building, so as per usual it went up quickly. As they were still banned from the penthouse level until it was finished, Chuck, Sarah, John and Ellie were staying in the Dungeon Apartment for a while, and it was interesting to see who was trying to find out where they'd moved to, as the queries coming from parts of the CIA and NSA showed that they'd been keeping tabs on them while they were at Echo Park, but there was no legitimate reason for them to do so.

The on-going CCE and LSS customers for the business lines that they were continuing were told that Piranha Security & Technology had taken over those business lines from the Los Angeles franchise when it was shut down after the offices were blown up. As part of this exercise, Skip was brought on board as a low level analyst for the Special Projects groups and given enough background information on the operation for him to understood what was going on. The fact that they'd only used their given names when dealing with customers made it easier, as Chuck and Sarah's name changes didn't register with people, but their customers were asked not to say anything at all about them as they were being hidden from the gang who blew up their offices.

* * *

They settled into the PS&T offices quickly, they'd lost over half of their existing business workload when they dropped all the basic installation and repair business lines, so they'd have to build their customer base up again, but they were OK with that, as it gave them the time they needed to work on their Intersect Project and Special Projects workloads. When the changes to the Intersect Project were signed off, their individual contracts with the various agencies that they'd been using for the Intersect Project were transferred across to the Intersect Project, and irrevocable riders were applied to all of the core team's intelligence and military identities which ensured their right to resign immediately at any time, with no reason given if they so chose. That made them all breath a little easier, knowing that they had an out when they wanted it.

Another part of these changes was that they were moving most of the main Special Projects people to L.A. The full extent of level two was now devoted to the Special Projects group offices and whatever other facilities that were required, and ground floor and basement labs and workshops were set up for Stephen and Leslie's work, using a cover business of Novatech. There were a few Navy, Air Force and FBI Groups that had to remain in the standard installations, but they were still being managed as they had been before, so that wasn't an issue. With the extension and revisions to Quixote House, accommodation wasn't an issue either, as they had two dozen large apartments on level three and the same on level four, and most of them would be shared, so there was plenty of room.

One apartment on level four was the subject of much attention though, because Abigail, Kim and Alex were sharing that one. Just before Aunt D asked for, and got agreement for, Abigail to be added to the group when the realignment was done, Kim had been put through two terribly traumatic ordeals. The first was that she was taken by white slavers in Paris when she was there on holiday just after she'd turned seventeen, Bry had only just managed to save her, and the friend who was taken with her had died from an overdose while she was in the hands of the slavers. Then, when she and her mother went to Istanbul to spend some time with Bry and try and help her put Paris behind her, the slavers' family came after them and she had to run from them again, and then help her father escape and get to the embassy.

After going through two ordeals like that when she was seventeen, Kim was understandably shaken and insecure, so when they discussed and agreed to Abigail joining the group, Bry asked whether there might be room for Kim to live and work with the group too. The immediate answer was "YES!" they'd have to determine the most appropriate role for her, but that could be done while they were making the arrangements, she was in, there was no question about that! Then, while they were talking about the arrangements for Kim, Casey had half jokingly said "What about Alex, is there room for one more?" He was surprised when Chuck quite seriously said "Definitely! Alex is already a long way towards having all the training she needs to work with us." Casey started to say that it was just a joke, but stopped, looking thoughtful and holding up a finger as he pulled out his phone. He WASN'T joking when he asked her whether she wanted to move into Quixote House and be part of the team, and nor was she when she immediately said "Yes!"

Alexander Coburn hadn't known that his fiancé was pregnant when he was coerced into faking his death and being recreated as John Casey in January 1989, and it wasn't until Chuck stumbled across the records of the original Alexander Coburn ten years later that he discovered that he had a daughter who'd been born seven months after he 'died'. Because of Chuck's experience with his own daughters, he and Ellie convinced John that whatever happened with her mother, Alexandra deserved the chance to know her father, so he went to see them and explain as much as he was allowed to about why he'd disappeared. After the initial anger and recriminations were out of the way, Kathleen, his erstwhile fiancé, had conceded that she could understand what had motivated him to do what he did, given that she hadn't had a chance to tell him that she was pregnant.

Kathleen had moved on and gotten married to a good man who she was happy with by then, but she fully supported Alex getting to know her father, and John had been a part of her life since then. With a father like John, it was no surprise that Alex was quite competent with firearms and many forms of unarmed combat, and was an accomplished licensed pilot before she turned sixteen. She was now halfway through her criminal psychology degree and doing well, arrangements had already been made for her to join the FBI when she was done, and she'd worked part time for CCE and the project team before her father blew up the building, so as Chuck said, she was perfect for the group.

As far as accommodation went, Kim and Alex knew each other and got on well together, spending a lot of time together, so they were all for sharing an apartment. They also knew and got on with Abigail, so it was no surprise when they suggested that they all share one apartment. They were all going to university, but they could work part time with the group while they did that, just as Alex had been doing before. Of course, to fit into the military structure they had to be part of the military, so they were each commissioned as second lieutenants in their parents' primary service, Abigail in the Air Force, Kim in the Army and Alex in the Marines.

Having most of their main people living and working in Quixote House once these changes were done was expected to make things quite a bit easier. Only the team leaders (or commanders, depending on who you were talking to) of the various groups regularly needed to deal with other branches of the military or intelligence communities or the government, and as Sarah was now rated on the F-15s as well, Emma and Bry were the only Special Projects team leaders who couldn't fly themselves across to the east coast in the F-15s. Depending on how urgent the matter was, they could lay on a C-37 for them, or they could coordinate their meetings with those of one of the other four and they could fly over with them, as that was what they'd been doing since the Special Projects group began anyway. If any other Special Projects people had to attend meetings back in D.C. or whatever, they'd just do the same as they did for Emma and Bry.

As people started moving into Quixote House, the benefits of the arrangement started showing results almost straight away, as being able to work through issues face to face often resolved them much faster.


	15. Fletch

**So I go away for a few days and people start putting things up? If I knew that I would have toddled off ages ago! ;)**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed etc.**

About a month after the case to move the Intersect Project out of NSA/CIA control was signed off, the people who were moving across to L.A. had moved and settled in, and the Penthouse was finally finished. After he'd checked it over and decided that it met his expectations, Roan came in to Chuck's office with Ellie and John and asked him and Sarah whether they were ready to see their new home? The answer to that, of course, was "Yes!", and they got up and eagerly headed for the door, but he asked them why they weren't using their elevator?

They stopped at that, turning back to him "What do you mean? That elevator only goes from B3 to 2!" He smiled at them "Ah, no, Eleanore and John's only goes that far, but your one goes from the basement to the Penthouse, we pushed it up through levels three and four when we were fitting them out, if you try it now, you should find a break above 2 and a P above that." Looking dubious, they turned and headed into the bathroom, where the 1M cylinder of the elevator stood in the corner.

Sarah put her hand to the palm reader to open it and they went in, closing the door with the palm reader again, which then changed to a touch panel keypad, when she keyed in her code she looked at the iris scanner camera, and the display changed again to show the levels, and sure enough, there was a 'P' showing at the top which she pressed, and it started to climb. The elevator was snug with the five of them in there, but it was workable, and it didn't take long to reach the Penthouse.

The elevator came up outside the informal kitchen, so they had a look in there first. It was a cosy room, the range, fridge, cupboards and appliances were around the inside walls, and Chuck's eyes gleamed at the sight of the programmable coffee machine that made pots of coffee, espressos, cappuccinos or whatever, as he expected that he'd be making a lot of use of that (he missed Roan's smile at that, but Sarah didn't, so she was pretty sure that this wasn't the only one of these machines in the Penthouse). Ellie's eyes gleamed almost as much as she took in the facilities and layout of the kitchen area, as the primary cook among them, this was more her domain and they could see that she approved.

While the siblings were checking out the facilities, Sarah headed over to the table that went across the glass wall looking out over the San Gabriel Mountains, if John was right, and he probably was, this was going to be a good place to start and finish their days, a cosy and comfortable nook in the grandeur of the Penthouse. At that point the 80" screen on the wall lit up and Aunt D asked "What to you think of your new place Sarah?" She smiled at the screen "This is all we've seen so far Auntie Di, but it's a good start."

"Are the others there?" Roan called out "Over here Diane", and another 55" screen lit up on the opposite wall above the sink. Ellie rolled her eyes at the way their Godmother had made sure that she could address them anywhere in here, but smiled and said "This is wonderful Auntie Di." She smiled, "You can thank your Uncle Roan for that, but Chuck, I'll keep this short, we've reached a consensus that your concerns about the upcoming RIOS release are valid, and that we need you to organise to send people in and sort out what's happening. I think that we need to involve your father in this, as he's the authority on Roark Instruments."

"Aunt D, No! He can't be objective about this, he'll just go off on a tangent about Roark again, don't drag him into this, I'll handle it."

"I really think we have to consult him Chuck, no-one's spent as much time looking into Roark and his activities as you father has. We can just bring him in to provide input on what he knows about RIOS and then you can run it from there."

Chuck looked at the screen in resignation, saying "Do what you want, but it won't help our operation" as he turned and walked out of the kitchen.

Ellie shook her head at the screen and followed Chuck, and as Sarah headed out after them she heard Roan saying sarcastically "Well, that went well" and Casey saying "He's right about his father, and you should know that by now!" before he left.

When she got to Chuck, she could see that he was more frustrated than angry, he wrapped his arms around her and they held each other for a few minutes, she could see Ellie and John doing the same thing a little ways away, so obviously Ellie felt the same way as Chuck did.

Roan gave them a few minutes before he came out, saying "Sorry about that" before moving on, "Why don't I show you your rooms before anything else happens? Chuck, you and Sarah are down the end", pointing down towards the other end of the building "The last door on the right is your bedroom, the one straight ahead is your workroom, and Ellie, you and John are there around the corner, your bedroom is on the left, your workroom on the right."

Ellie stretched up on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek, saying "Thank you Uncle Roan" before she headed for their rooms with John, and Chuck reached out to squeeze his shoulder and said "Thanks Uncle Roan" and Sarah kissed him on the cheek before he and Sarah headed to their's.

As it was straight ahead, they checked out the workroom first, the room was 40' by 15', with glass on three sides, the side wall looked out over the San Gabriel Mountains like the kitchen, but the long wall facing the roof garden had a great view of the mountains as well. Around the glass walls were exercise machines, punching bags, wooden men and the like, while elegant glass computer desks took up about two thirds of the inner wall, with multiple computer stations and even more screens spread along the desks. One desk was seventeen feet long, followed by two doors together, then a five foot wide kitchenette, another door, and finally another nine foot desk.

The thing that stopped them, though, was what covered the inner wall above the screens, the long section was mainly Chuck's, while the shorter section was Sarah's. They had the 'sheepskins' for all their degrees and certificates of where they were the Valedictorians of their high schools (with the name changed from Jennifer Burton to Sarah Walker for her's and Charles Bartowski to Charles Carmichael for his), the certificates for their initial commissions and subsequent promotions (with the dates adjusted for Sarah's), all their medals, certifications and commendations, certificates for records they'd taken in training, and Chuck's three flight certifications that Aunt D showed Sarah. Above those they had pictures from their trainings, missions and award ceremonies, and news articles about what they'd done, and pride of place was taken by pictures from their wedding. All this was arrayed in a structured manner, but arranged quite artistically, the degrees, certificates, medals, the pictures (which were A3 or A2 size) and the like were all sitting behind smart glass, which allowed them to be displayed or hidden in less that a second.

They stood and looked at what was essentially their wall of fame for a while, then shook their heads and went to see what was behind Door Number Two (if they were calling the one they came in Door Number One) Door Number Two turned out to be a compact but well appointed ensuite, about 10' by 5' with a good sized vanity and shower, toilet at the other end. Door Number Three opened onto a large walk in wardrobe, 10' by 11', with about half of the floor space taken up by the hanging space and cupboards, which were about half filled already. Once again they had two more doors to chose from, so they went for Door Number Three on the far wall, as the one straight across must go into the bedroom.

Door Number Three opened into a large, airy bathroom, about 10' by 9' with a glass wall down the outside, which gave the same wonderful view of the mountains if you were lounging in the decadent four person Jacuzzi bath, or sitting on the toilet for that matter. The shower was big enough for four people as well, with separate showers so that two people could use it independently, the double vanity took up the rest of the space to the door. The vanity was set up to provide pretty much all the functionality of the hair and makeup station in the Dungeon, and with a touch of a button, the smart glass of the outside wall became a mirror as well, so the bathroom was just about perfect to get ready in.

That only left the bedroom itself, so they opened the door into the main bedroom, noting that it masked the toilet from view when open, which was a nice touch. The bedroom was large, airy and open, the main thing in there was the 8' long by 9' wide ultra bed. Looking at the bed, the same thought crossed their minds as when they were looking at the tub in the bathroom, that they weren't sure that they wanted to ask Roan about what he'd been thinking there, for fear of what the answer may be. The bed sat between the bathroom and walk in doors, and there was a sitting area up near the inside wall, aside from that the room was open.

They decided that they could be quite comfortable in here, and headed back out to the open area, checking out the guest bedrooms as they went back to where the others were, they were all large, open and comfortable, with good sized ensuites and built in wardrobes. They met Ellie and John coming the other way, doing the same thing.

Ellie and Sarah were excitedly comparing notes and Ellie leaned in to whisper "Do you have an orgy sized bed and bath too?" Sarah grinned "Oh yeah! I'm glad it wasn't just us, otherwise I would have had to ask him what he was getting at! Do you guys have walls of fame too?"

"Uh Huh! Can I see your's?" Sarah just grinned, grabbed her hand and dragged her down to their workroom. Just as she was about to activate the palm reader though, she stopped and told Ellie to try it, as she should have access, so Ellie activated the reader to open the door.

When they were inside, Sarah waved to the left to say that her's were mainly over there and Chuck's were mainly to the right, but Ellie was looking around the room "I like this! Well our's is nice, too, it's got a lovely view, but looking out onto the roof garden as well as the mountains, that's nice…..." She stopped as she looked at the other end "Is that an Olympic swimming pool?" Sarah shook her head "Not a full Olympic pool, no, they're fifty metres long, it looks like it might be the long enough for a short course pool at twenty five metres, though. I doubt it's twenty five metres wide, but it's pretty impressive for up here. I want to see what that other pool and the cabin down there is, too."

Ellie grinned "I'm not certain I WANT to know, I love Uncle Roan, but quite often I don't want to know where his mind goes." They both laughed at that and turned so that Ellie could look at their 'walls'. There were few surprises on Chuck's, as they'd always been open with each other, and she'd made him tell her what happened whenever she had to patch him up, which was all too often for her liking, but Sarah's, yeah, there were a lot of surprises there! Sarah couldn't understand why she was staring at her, until she tapped one of the certificates for the records Sarah had taken at the Farm "Do you know who the agent you took this record off was, the one identified as 187763?" Sarah shook her head "No, I asked once because the majority of the records I took had been held by them, but I was told I didn't need to know."

Ellie grinned then "187763 was Frost, Mom held most of those records for seventeen or eighteen years until you came along, some she'd had for twenty years, she was pissed off when Uncle Roan told her that someone had finally taken them off her." Sarah groaned "Great! Now I've pissed off my mother in law, just what I need!" Ellie laughed as she hugged her, "Relax! She need never know, unless Uncle Roan has already told her….. No, he wouldn't do that!"

She took a better look at the kitchenette "This is more than the one in our workroom, we've just got a coffee machine, fridge and sink, but that makes sense, this is enough for Chuck to make himself something to eat when he's working through the night." She stopped when Sarah frowned at that "Sweetie, you know what he's like, he'd always worked through the night. You do know that he's cut back a lot since he's had you, don't you?" Sarah looked confused "What do you mean?"

"He stays with you until you're asleep, and he only goes back to work when it's not taking time away from you, for someone who's always worked twenty hours a day or more, that's a big thing!"

Sarah shook her head "I never thought of it that way, I was just thinking that I wanted him right with me when I woke up, but when I wake up during the night he's always on the computer, I didn't think of what he'd giving up."

Chuck spoke up from the open door "I'm not giving up anything, I'm just trying to juggle getting the work done against spending as much time as I can with you, because that's where I want to be."

She went to him and they wrapped their arms around each other. As he kissed her in the forehead, Ellie looked at him "You saw who took Mom's records, didn't you?" He nodded with a smile "What she doesn't know won't hurt us." Just then John and Roan came to the door and Ellie asked "You didn't tell her, did you Uncle Roan?" "And get our sweet little Sammie in trouble? Of course not! Your mother isn't likely to come into here, because this is a work domain, so here Charles is her boss and she hates having to admit that."

Chuck smiled again "Not just me, Mom's been allocated to a couple of Sarah's groups as well." Roan chuckled "In that case, she'll NEVER come in here! Now, are you ready for the rest of the tour?" They all nodded and told him to lead on. As they went through the informal lounge area on the way back to the informal kitchen, Roan pointed out the various features. Even though this was basically the private wing of the Penthouse, the open lounge area was quite large, with the first sixty eight feet twenty feet wide, and another forty seven feet that was fifteen feet wide, so Chuck and Sarah had quite a walk to the kitchen and private elevator

When he got to the room in the corner, he looked at Chuck, saying "Charles, this room was actually designed for you" before he opened the door. The room was massive, 25' by 45', and it was the ultimate nerd's games room, it had arcade games, computer games, and just about all of the console games, along with a full sized billiards table, a bar, a vast array of traditional board games. The room was also set up as a home theatre room with the smart glass at the end making quite a good 300" 2.35:1 projection screen for the 4K projector and a high end surround sound setup.

After checking out the games room, they took note of the row of toilets opposite the door and proceeded to the dining area and kitchen. Ellie shook her head at the main kitchen, as the idea of a commercial level kitchen like that in a private home boggled her mind, it had the capacity to cater for functions for sixty to seventy without much trouble. The final area to check out, inside at least, was the formal lounge area, this was a 35' by 65' space that was sparsely filled with lounges and chairs, all of which sat on lockable rollers so that they could be rearranged or moved back to the walls as required. The lounge area was surrounded by smart glass on three sides, and it had four projector setups like the games room had, which could be quite impressive with they were all in use.

When the areas inside had been shown off, they headed outside, the first segment of the roof garden they looked through was 90' by 120', followed by the full width segment that was 130' by 150', finishing with the 2M deep 25M by 15M glass sided pool, large jacuzzi pool that'd take over a dozen people, and the sauna, change rooms (which could also serve as guest cabins) and bar that wrapped around the jacuzzi pool.

Most the the area was covered with a soft, lush green version of astro turf, and most of the way around the edge and dotted about the middle were gardenia trees and bushes, with rhododendron trees and bushes interspersed with them here and there to add a bit of colour. As well as variable lighting to illuminate the area with a soft, fairly even light, fairy lights were twined through all the trees and bushes, which they were to find looked positively magical at night.

As well as their private elevator, the three main elevators came up the roof garden as well, the one at the Penthouse end had doors to both the garden and the Penthouse (though few people could access the Penthouse), while the centre and pool end ones were set up as huts, and only opened onto the garden.

As much as they were enjoying checking out their new home, though, they knew that they had to go back downstairs and deal with the Roark Instruments issue. They were all a little pissed off that Aunt D had ignored everyone and brought Chuck's father in to consult him on the issue. After he'd rambled on and bitched about what a thieving bastard Roark was for fifteen minutes without saying anything about RIOS, Aunt D cut him off "Stephen! This operation is ONLY about RIOS, we don't have time for your perceived slights from Ted Roark, what do you have to tell us about RIOS?"

He stumbled then, knowing that what he was about to say would not go down well. "Well, I don't actually know anything about RIOS specifically."

"WHAT? I asked you whether you had anything that could assist us with the issue about RIOS and you said yes!"

"Well you can't deal with anything in Roark Industries without understanding about Roark..."

"GET OUT! They all warned me not to waste time with you but I overruled them because you told me that you knew something about RIOS, GET OUT!"

When he opened his mouth to argue she said "Colonel Casey, if Mr Barton is still in the room in ten seconds, I want him thrown in a cell until we have the time to decide what to do about him!" That got through to him and Stephen ran from the room, because he knew that Casey would gladly carry out that order.

She looked at the angry faces in the room and said "I know, you told me this would happen, but I thought that he was being honest with me when he said he had something that we needed. Mary, he apparently needs more help than he's been getting."

Mary shook her head "I know, but he's refusing to see Doctor Dreyfus because he says he doesn't need to any more."

Aunt D looked grim "We have to do something about that, but we don't have time at the moment, Chuck, what's the plan for this operation?"

Chuck brought a few things up on screen "Unfortunately they have enough people who know what they're doing to make breaking into their systems without setting off alarms take more time than we have to spare, so I'll have to go in and access them from the inside, I'll set up access devices so the others can get into the systems when I'm there."

Sarah rounded on him "You're not going in there by yourself!"

Chuck sighed, as he knew that the next thing he said would go over like a lead balloon "No, but the only viable person to go in there with me is Anna. The situation in there could be dangerous, so I won't take in anyone who doesn't have combat training and experience, that cuts out Pete and the others, the only other ones we have with the tech qualifications to get in there are Jeff and Anna. I really wish I could use Jeff as this is right up his alley, but he's too old to suit the type of job we'll have to go for to get in there quickly, so that only leaves Anna and me to get in there."

Sarah glared at him for a while, but she finally nodded in resignation as she could see the logic in his argument. He pulled her into his arms, whispering "I'm sorry" into her hair as he kissed on the head, and held her as he continued. "If we haven't identified the Fulcrum people or located the rogue code by the release day, I'll set it up so we can wipe out everything on the systems in there, and I'll get Sarah, Casey, Rick, Sydney and Mei-Ling into the release being held at Roark Instruments to help with the fight in there when the Fulcrum people come out of the woodwork..." Zondra went to say something, but Chuck shook his head "No Zondra, you guys stand out too much, it will be hard enough to alter the others' appearance as much as we need to make them at all believable, but I'm not going to waste the time trying to talk my wife or brother in law out of coming in. I would have put Carina with you if her ankle hadn't already taken her off the list..." When Carina went to speak he added "Which it does! You may be fit for normal duties Carina, but you aren't fit for combat yet! You guys will be outside with Mom in case Fulcrum has more people inside Roark Instruments than we're expecting."

Aunt D decided to break in before this got messy "How are you going to get Anna and yourself in there Chuck?"

"A thousand and one things go wrong leading up to a big release, so they'll be hiring to cater for that, wait a sec..." He kissed Sarah on the head and went to the table to grab the integrated keyboard, bringing up a browser and getting to the RI jobs page. He selected two roles that they'd be a shoe in for with his Stanford and Anna's Caltech credentials and sent off applications for them.

Just then, his phone chirped to indicate a message, when he looked at it he smiled and said "I have to run an errand, I'll be back in an hour or so. Zondra, do you have time to come along? I'd like your opinion on something."

Sarah's "Chuck?" was low and dangerous, but his smile as he stepped in to wrap his arms around her and kiss her disarmed her, even though his words "It's something FOR you, so you aren't seeing it until it's ready to give to you" were tantamount to a challenge to her. He understood this and was waiting for the soft touch as she tried to lift his phone from his pocket to see what the message was, so he grabbed her hand, saying "Uh uh, you're going to have to wait and see." He kissed her again and headed for the elevator with Zondra in tow.

In the elevator, Zondra started to ask "Is?…." but he stopped her, pointing at the camera and blowing a kiss to Sarah, his expectations confirmed a few seconds later when they heard her voice "Keep it up Honey and you'll make me mad!" but added "I love you." There was no doubting the sincerity in his voice when Chuck responded with "I love you too Sweetheart."

When they got into the garage, Zondra was surprised when Chuck grabbed his helmet and indicated for her to do the same. It was less of a surprise when he went to the older Harley and started it, as its age had always made it clear that it was someone's from before all this, and what she knew about Casey made it unlikely that it was his. When it had warmed up, Chuck pulled his helmet on and nodded for her to climb on behind. As a rider, she could appreciate the skill in his smooth, aggressive riding as he carved through the traffic, and she got the message and held on tight when he reached back to pull her left arm around him.

As soon as she was secure, he opened the bike up and it took off. The only thing she could think was 'Shit! Harleys aren't supposed to be this fast!' She couldn't believe the way that this slightly ratty looking old Harley was blasting along at a pace that most sports bikes would have trouble keeping up with, leaving trails of sparks from the foot pegs and stand when they were cranked over enough to scrape the road. When he cut inside of a CHP pursuit car halfway through a tight bend and they made no attempt chase him, it was fairly obvious that this was a common enough occurrence that the cops knew that it would be a waste of time to even try and catch him.

At that pace, it didn't take them long to reach the race track that they were headed to, and they were waved in as the guard at the gate recognised Chuck, so obviously he was a regular here. The cabriolet had been offloaded from the truck and was sitting there, sleek, black and deliciously dangerous looking. The chief engineer from the shop went over the whole car with them (well Chuck, mainly, but he gave Zondra serious answers when she asked questions, so he wasn't presuming that she was just there as arm candy, which was a nice change), then Chuck took it out on the track.

Zondra was finding all sorts of things out about Chuck today, first that he was a hell of a rider, then that he knew a hell of a lot about mechanical matters and setting up cars, and now…. now she had to face the fact that there was no way she'd ever match him as a driver, his technique was flawless, getting the most out of the Porsche, though watching him drift it through a seventy to eighty mile an hour corner at over one fifty had her heart in her mouth. She instinctively knew he'd never do this with anyone else in the car, just as she'd known that he could go far harder on the bike without anyone else on the back, but it was like he had the world's best race and rally drivers in his head, guiding his hands and feet.

Chuck brought the Porsche in a few times and had a few settings tweaked, then asked Zondra whether she'd like to try it before they took the slicks off. She was running for the driver's seat before he stopped speaking, strapping in and adjusting the belts and seat before he had a chance to change his mind. She wasn't about to try and emulate him, but she was used to pushing hot Porsches along with other performance machines hard, and this was by far the quickest Porsche she'd ever driven, quite probably the fastest car she'd driven. When she was coming back the thought crossed her mind that she HAD to try that 'vette and the other machines in the stable that were modified, as they were bound to be interesting as well.

When she brought the Porsche in, Chuck suggested that she might like to take the Harley around the track enough to get used to it, as he'd like her to ride it back while he took the Porsche. She did that while they were swapping the wheels on the Porsche and cleaning it up, and she could easily feel how much development had gone into the suspension, brakes and drive train of the bike. Zondra wasn't used to pushing a bike with forward controls and a relaxed seating position hard, hell, she'd hardly ridden bikes like that at all, but with the power, brakes and handling it had, she was circulating quickly, even by her standards, and feeling comfortable with it.

Her first question when she brought it back in though was about the button next to the throttle. The shop's engineer grinned at her response when Chuck said "Oh, that, it's the nitrous switch" she almost shouted when she said "Nitrous? Why the hell do you need nitrous when you have that much power already?" Otto (the engineer) nudged Chuck with his elbow and said "Show her Charles, she won't believe unless you do!" Chuck shook his head at him, but went to get his helmet from the truck.

Zondra was mesmerised as she watched him blasting around the track on the Harley, and was taken aback by just how far over the bike was before the pegs started scraping like they had on the way here, as she'd put the feeling of how far over they were down to her imagination playing tricks on her. What really surprised her though, even more than how fast he was circulating, was the way he drifted the bike around that tight corner like he had the Porsche, punching the nitrous as he came around to launch it down the straight so that he was drifting sideways at over a hundred and twenty miles an hour with the front wheel in the air. When the front wheel came down the bike streaked down the straight at over two hundred miles an hour before he hit those massive front brakes at the last minute to scrub off enough speed to carve through the bend at the other end. He came in after a few laps like that and one cool down lap, shutting it down and taking off his helmet before saying "That's why." The guys who'd seen this many times were grinning at Zondra's expression as she stared at him.

They quickly wound things up and headed back, with Chuck following Zondra. Sarah had been tracking them since they left, so when she saw them getting close she headed down to the garage area to meet them, Chuck was going to tell her what he was getting for her, and she didn't care what she had to do to make him! That was why her jaw dropped when the wicked black Porsche followed Zondra on Chuck's Harley into the garage. The top was down as he drove in, that was the only thing that told her that this was the cabriolet that Chuck brought back from Rio, other than that, it looked and sounded like it had come off a race track. She could see that the interior, though sumptuous, was far simpler that the Carrera cab's had been, with the dash and console in native carbon fibre, and knew without being told that this car was far lighter and more powerful than any production Porsche was. Chuck looked at her, a little disappointed that she'd spoiled the surprise, and put the top and windows up before he turned it off and got out.

Sarah's face crumpled when she saw his expression and she tried to apologise and explain to him that surprises had never meant anything good in her world before him, all at once. He pulled her into his arms and shushed her, telling her that it was alright, he'd just been hoping to stage the big reveal better than this. He took some of the blame on himself, saying that he should have taken her to check it out, but he'd wanted to make sure that everything was right before she saw it. She kissed him and shyly asked if he'd come for a drive with her? He nodded with a smile and once she'd adjusted the seat and belts to fit her they took off. By the time they came back half an hour later, she was in love with her car, not as much as her husband of course, but Heidi pretty much beat everyone else out.

Chuck and Anna got calls to come in for interviews that afternoon, and they started then and there on the spot. They'd both taken access devices in and salted them around their offices, so they were sending large blocks of RIOS code out for Jeff to get working on before the end of the day. Well, Anna was doing most of that as the Piranha was scouring the RI environments for evidence of Fulcrum involvement, and getting very frustrated by his lack of success.

One of the first things that struck them was how easy it was to look productive in RI, because most of the people there were so useless, Chuck was actually starting to wonder whether there might be something to what his father had been saying all along, and Roark just stole everything that he built Roark Industries' fortune and reputation on.

As soon as quitting time came, they were out the door. Anna was driving the Honda Civic from the collection, but Chuck was riding his 'ratty old Harley', so he was back at Quixote House before her, even with doubling back a few times to make sure no-one was following her. The first thing Chuck asked about when he came in the door was what Jeff had found in the code they'd sent through.

It didn't help his mood when Jeff told them about the embedded code that he'd identified, extracted and reverse engineered, because Jeff's achievement just made his own failure to dig up anything of value that much more frustrating. Jeff had confirmed what he'd seen in the flash about RIOS, there was embedded code designed to open access to government systems, taking control, grabbing intel and sending it out. They were trying to trace the systems that everything was being sent to, but they didn't appear to be created, or at least turned on, as yet, even though the DNS entries were being propagated around the 'net. As a result, they couldn't narrow it down to more than areas of given cities as yet. That being said, it was enough to arrange for teams to be in place in those areas by the time that RIOS was supposed to be released, so when the systems were active, those teams could be sent in to take control of the facilities where they were located.

Jeff's monumental feat in accomplishing this just made Chuck feel all the more inadequate, he wasn't disparaging Jeff's skills at all, he KNEW how good he was. Jefferson Davis Barnum had been MIT's brightest star since Stefan Bartol, but the Piranha, who'd bested Roscoe nearly twelve years ago and remained at the forefront of their cyber efforts ever since, couldn't manage to locate ANYTHING to show who or where the people they were up against here were!

Chuck caught the look that passed between Sarah and Ellie and barked at them "No! Chuck doesn't need to have his mind taken off this, Chuck needs to get to the bottom of this NOW! We've only got a day and a half before this is due to be released and I have NOTHING. This whole operation could fall apart because I've failed to do my part!" With that, he stalked off to start building and configuring the devices that needed to be installed around the RI networks to ensure that when the the time came and the signals were sent to trigger them, every computer, database, appliance and device connected in any way to any of RI's wired or WiFi networks would be utterly wiped out. He was going for total annihilation here, if he couldn't pinpoint the nefarious elements that they knew were there, he'd have to take the scorched earth approach.

This wasn't something he wanted to do, indiscriminate destruction of this nature was totally wrong to him, hell, what he was setting up could burn the building to the ground with hundreds of people inside, including Sarah and the others, because the building systems would be taken out with everything else, but they had to stop this getting out, so if he couldn't find and take out the Fulcrum elements and stop RIOS going out, Armageddon would have to be released. He stopped to think about that for a moment, and made that the signal to trigger the destruction of all the systems, as it was quite fitting.

When all the devices were ready, he took some of them to Anna's apartment, leaving them with her work things, and took the rest upstairs. In the Penthouse, he went straight to his workroom and prepared to spend the night searching for information about RI that he might have missed. Four or five hours later, the door to the wardrobe opened and a sobbing Sarah came into the workroom, begging him to forgive her. That broke his heart and he pulled her into his arms, telling her that she hadn't done anything wrong, it was just him dealing with failure badly. She sniffed back the tears and waved to the plates, coffee cups and clothes on the bench, asking "Why are you punishing me then? You're locking me out. You were going to stay in here all night and go straight to RI from here without seeing me, weren't you?"

"I'm NOT punishing you! But I have to find the answers and stop this before RIOS is due to release, what I had to set up to wipe all the systems is too dangerous. Sammie, you have to promise me that you and the others will get out of the building before you send the Armageddon signal!"

She looked him in the eye, a little frightened by his intensity, her Chuck was like a man possessed at the moment "Why, what have you set up Chuck?" he shook his head "Any centrally controlled building systems will be crashed with everything else, so people could be locked inside and fires and god knows what else could happen, I can't do what I have to if I'm worrying about what might happen to you in there."

Sarah nodded "OK, we'll make sure everyone's out and then we set it off." Chuck shook his head "No, Just grab whoever's with you in the auditorium and set it off as soon as you're out, I'll get out another way, we can't risk what's in RIOS being released!" She just looked at him, her previous upset supplanted by anger "Chuck, I will NOT set this off with my husband inside, not after you told me how dangerous it could be!"

"OK, I'll let you know when I'm outside and you can set it off." The look that she was giving him said that she didn't believe that he was telling her the whole truth, but this was the closest they'd ever come to a major argument and it was tearing her apart, so she accepted his words at face value. "Will you come to bed now, please? I need you to hold me!"

"Sarah, I can't, there's something here that isn't right, but I just can't see it, I need to work out what it is..."

"Chuck, please! I'm begging you! I can't stand this!" she burst into tears again and he locked the screens, taking her to bed. They spent the next few hours trying to make each other forget what had happened before, and then fell asleep in each other's arms.

The next day was just as frustrating as the previous day had been, they got the rest of the RIOS code out to Jeff, along with whatever files they found that seemed of value, and installed the Armageddon devices around the network, but they weren't finding any evidence of Fulcrum on the systems, or in the office.

The only thing they found out other than the files they dug up was the gossip Anna got from the girls, that they called Roark (who insisted that everyone call him 'Ted') 'Fletch' because he was a fucking letch. A few of the women had tried to warn Anna not to wear low cut tops or short skirts in the office, because it wasn't safe for any woman to be caught alone with him any time, but he'd take that as an invitation and it was almost guaranteed that he'd attack her. Mary groaned at that "Shit, the bastard hasn't changed in twenty five years then."

They all looked at her, so she continued "Roark was one of the minions that Graham forced Stefan to take into the team, he kept making advances at me, even though I told him that I was married and would NOT play around, until the day that he stuck his hand up my skirt. I broke his wrist and nose and just about ruptured his balls, then I stood on his wrist and twisted my foot while I told him what I'd do to him is he ever tried to touch me again. He never came near me again after that..." She stopped as she realised something "Dammit, that's probably why Graham got him to screw up the Agent X coding, the weasel was still holding a grudge about that so he probably didn't have to pay him anything to do it, why didn't I realise that before?"

Sarah was working on other things after the meeting, so she didn't see Chuck having a quiet word with Rick and Sydney, if she had, things probably would have gone differently the next day. Chuck spent another few hours that night trying to identify what it was that he wasn't seeing on the utility monitors for Roark Instruments, but while he KNEW that there was something there, he still couldn't put his finger on it, so he gave up and went to bed.

On the morning of the release, Chuck kept trying to collar Roark to get him to stop the release, or at least delay it until the malicious code could be removed, but he was blocked at every turn. Eventually he shut down the devices that they were using to open pipes out to their systems to push out the files and went to push his way through to Roark to confront him when he was getting ready to take the stage, telling him "Mr Roark, you can't release RIOS, I've found large blocks of malware in it! It could do untold damage!" Roark looked at him, and the bumbling fool disappeared for a moment as he looked at his guards and ordered "Get rid of him! Do it quietly but make it quick!"

As the guards closed in on him, Chuck flashed on them, they were both Fulcrum agents, and what's more, from the images associated with them, Roark was Fulcrum, too! He let them lead him away to a quieter area before he took them out, calling over the mic that he was clear, so they needed to get out and trigger the Armageddon devices. As he collected the pistols, mags and passes from the two Fulcrum agents, he saw in his mind's eye what should be happening at the moment, Sarah and the others should be moving as quickly as possible without attracting attention out of the auditorium and then on out through the lobby.

That meant that he had five minutes at most to secure Roark before they set off the devices and crashed all the systems in the building, so he headed towards the auditorium the same way the others were leaving it. Perhaps it was because he had to avoid all the security guards, or perhaps he'd underestimated how quickly Sarah and the others could exit the building, but everything crashed before he reached the auditorium. All the lights died and the power surges started fires all over the place, which both helped and hindered visibility, as the flames provided light but the smoke obscured just about everything.

Chuck saw Roark being hustled out the back by more guards and started firing, but there were enough of the men fighting a rear guard action and firing back to prevent him getting to Roark before he could be slipped through a door to some area that Chuck didn't know. As there was little chance of getting through that many guards with heavier weapons than him, and body armour, Chuck faded back into the darkness and smoke and turned to navigate the darkened hallways to the lobby, the floor plans in his head making this a far easier task for him than any of the other hundreds of people trying to do the same thing.

When Sarah saw him exiting the lobby, relief to see that he was OK battled with fury, and the fury won out, as the fact that he was only now coming out of the lobby meant that he'd lied to her, not once but twice! Two nights ago, he'd told her he'd get out before the devices were triggered, and just now, he'd told them that he WAS clear to get them to trigger the devices! That brought something else to mind and she turned to point at Rick "You! Tell me what orders he give you about setting off the devices!" Rick almost shat himself, because he finally understood the stories about 'the face that launched a thousand deaths'! He had no doubt that if she didn't like his answer, he'd join that number, but he drew himself up and answered straight "The Captain ordered me to trigger the devices as soon as we, well, you were clear if he sent the call that he was clear and to get out, Ma'am!"

She held him with her glare for another twenty to thirty seconds, and then turned to stalk off, furious! There was only one machine that would get her away from here fast enough to suit her, and that was Chuck's Harley. Her thumbprint turned it on and she started it and took off before Chuck, who'd broken into a run when he saw her stalk off, could reach her. He whirled about to call out and ask Casey where he'd left his Harley, and ran in the direction Casey pointed, thirty seconds later another Harley burst into life and blasted out after the first.

The other Harley was nowhere near as fast as his, but he found her in the hills about ten minutes later, sitting on the ground, crying her eyes out. When he first reached her, the slap she gave him almost knocked several teeth out, and the next few were only slightly gentler, but it was the way she screamed at him "YOU LIED TO ME!" that hurt the most, because it was true. When she'd reacted the way she had two nights ago, he knew that she wouldn't set off the devices until she knew he was safe, any more than he'd set them off with her in the building, so he gave Rick and Sydney their orders, and made the call when he knew he probably wouldn't get clear in time as he was going after Roark.

He eventually got the story out, after a good deal of tears from both of them, and she conceded that what he'd done, even though she hated him for it at that moment, was the only way for them to achieve what they needed to. When it was time to head home, Chuck asked if she wanted to ride one of the Harleys or wanted to ride with him, she just looked at him and took his arm as they headed to the bikes. He fished out his phone and called Casey to get someone to come pick up the other Harley, when Casey just asked if she was OK, he looked down at her and said "She will be."

When they got back to Quixote House, the punch Chuck got from Ellie was harder than any of the hits he received from Sarah, and the slap from his mother wasn't much lighter, at least Aunt D, Carina, Zondra, Casey, Jeff, Anna and Mei-Ling kept their abuse to verbal, but he was feeling a little battered, so he went up to have a hot shower, and Sarah went with him.

After the shower, they went into the workroom to get a few things done, as neither of them wanted to face the others, but when he brought up the screens that he'd been monitoring RI with, Chuck started swearing. Sarah ran over to see what was wrong, and he pointed at the screens "THAT's what I was missing! The fact that the utilities usage was more than could be explained by the visible systems. All those dormant areas are the main RI systems, the ones we wiped out with the Armageddon devices, the fact that this other area is still active says that it must have been totally separate. This must be where all the Fulcrum activity is, it's also got a hell of a lot going on, in fact…." he stopped and dug up some other files, throwing them up on screen beside the remaining RI figures. "Fuck! They've got an intersect facility there!"

Sarah looked at the screens, trying to see what he was "Are you sure?" he nodded, "Yes, see the patterns here, here, here, here and here? I've only seen them on an Intersect computer." He called the others and told them to meet them in the Dungeon, and then took her hand and headed for 'their' elevator. On the way down, he kissed her hair and quietly asked whether he was forgiven? Her initial "No!" Didn't sound promising, but she continued with "Not yet, but we can get there, as long as you never to that to me again. I thought we had an agreement, 'no secrets, no lies'? You're everything to me but I have to be able to trust you, how can I do that if you lie to me?"

"I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking straight, I had it locked in my head that that was the only way to complete the mission and keep you safe."

She turned to face him "I get that, but I thought you respected me?" She held up a finger when he went to respond "That WASN'T respecting me! It was treating me as your inferior who needed to be protected, we're supposed to be a team, working together as equals, and that's the only way this can work. I will be miserable without you, but if you ever do that to me again, I'm gone. Either I'm your wife, your partner, the way I'm supposed to be, or I'll have to try to exist without you, I can't live like this. I'm sure that Auntie Di will set me up somewhere else so I can continue to work and I hope that enough of the team will come with me for us to keep being effective."

She could see that he was falling apart at her words, but she had to force herself to be strong, they couldn't run this operation if he kept trying to push her aside when things were dangerous, she'd taken on almost as much as he had for the last nine years before they found each other again and she'd faced up to the best and the worst in the world in that time, she didn't get the Distinguished Intelligence cross and Intelligence Star twice for being weak, and this man that she lived for had to accept her for what she was, just as she had to accept him for what he was.

He nodded, in tears "I promise, I'll never do that again, I was wrong, I knew that when I came out and saw you walking away from me. I know that you're strong enough to continue without me, what you've gone through, you're the strongest person I know, but I don't know whether I can handle losing you again, you're my world now."

They clung onto each other as the elevator continued to the Dungeon, and on the other side of the country, Aunt D sat, watching with tears streaming down her face. She'd breached the agreement she'd made about watching them because she was terrified that what he'd done may be enough to destroy what they had. Yes, she'd move Sarah and the people who wanted to follow her somewhere else if it came to that, but she just prayed that it never did, because if her godson, who she loved, screwed up this badly again, it'd destroy both of them, neither of them would ever be whole again, and nor would the organisation that they'd built, which now needed both of them to succeed.


	16. Fulcrum

**A little bit of redemption for Mary in this one, Stephen, not so much.**

 **Usual disclaimers for the land of litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed and the real world's back there, way back there!**

The others could see that things were tense between Chuck and Sarah, but they could also see that they'd started on the path back. None of them expected Mary to be the one who provided the stress relief though. She walked up to Chuck and clouted him across the back of the head, saying "Charles, you're my baby boy and I love you but you're an idiot! Your wife was the only one in the CIA in twenty years who was good enough to take my records off me, so she's no delicate little flower and it's disrespectful to treat her as one. She's probably the only woman in the world strong enough and smart enough to be your match, so I expect you to give my daughter in law the credit she's due!"

Sarah stared at her "You knew? But they were all sure that you would have screamed the house down if you found out!"

Mary smirked at her "Please, I did more than kick arse Sweetie, do you really think that I could have been the top ranked agent in my day if I didn't have a brain to go with that, any more than you could be now? I may not be as good with computers as Charles or his father, or as brilliant as your Mama, or you for that matter, but I'm quite good at getting intel and deciphering it. As soon as Roan told me that some hotshot had come in and blitzed just about everything I'd held for the previous twenty years, I had to look into who you were. I must apologise to you though, I thought that the way you did things was familiar, but I didn't make the effort to analyse it properly at the time, if I had, we might have found a way to reconnect you with Emma that much sooner and saved you from some of what you had to go though."

She looked at her son "Has he accepted that what he did was wrong?"

Sarah nodded "Yes, and he's promised that he'll never do it again" her smile faded as she added "and I think he knows that I was serious about what will happen if he does."

Mary went white at that "No, Sammie, he's nothing without you! He might have been regarded as the best before, but he's so many times better with you! And I haven't seen him this alive since Joe took you away, the spiteful bastard!"

Chuck was staring at her, and Mary could read him well enough to know what he was thinking "Yes, I've been watching you all along" she looked at Ellie "Both of you." Then she looked at her son in law "But you were wrong, it wasn't that I didn't care about my children, it was that they were better off without me, and they were stronger than their father, he needed me more, he still does, even more so now. I didn't step in because Eleanora was a better mother to Charles than I could ever have been, and when I came back from Volkoff's world, I wasn't fit to have anything to do with them, it took me years to get rid of what that world did to me. I'm glad that Eleanora had the sense to come back to you Johnny, you're a good man, but she did have a point, she would never have gone to that bastard if you'd just been honest with her about how you felt…."

She broke off and turned back at Sarah "If he promised you that he won't do it again, I know that he'll keep that promise, because you're his whole life Sammie, I know I haven't told you this, I'm sorry, but I love you for bringing joy back into his life, only my granddaughters have ever managed to make him smile like you do."

Mary suddenly smiled "And I'd love to have more grandchildren to dote over as well, just so you know." That made Sammie smile as well, and she embraced her mother in law, then they got to the point of the meeting.

* * *

Aunt D swore when Chuck presented the evidence that Fulcrum had an Intersect computer, and also advised her that Ted Roark was apparently highly placed in Fulcrum. Aunt D also didn't appreciate Chuck's response when she said that they needed to go in and investigate this hidden facility, mind you "No, do you think?" wasn't at all subtle.

She just glared at him and asked what the plan was "The passes I took off the two Fulcrum agents in RI should hopefully get us into the Fulcrum area, and hopefully they'll be a little complacent after wiping out RI had no effect on them so we'll have time to slip in and clip remote access devices into the camera wiring so that Jeff and Anna can take control of the system before they spot us, otherwise it will get hairy fast. If we can get in without being seen, we'll plug combination remote access and Armageddon devices into the network so that Jeff, Anna and Pete can start grabbing whatever they can find while we see what else we can find in there. If we're put into a compromised position, they can trigger the devices to cover our escape."

Aunt D nodded "Who will be going in?"

Chuck thought for a second "Me and my better half, of course" Sarah smiled at that and he reached out to squeeze her hand "along with Casey, Mei-Ling, Zondra and Uncle Bry, Jeff, Anna, Pete and Lucas will handle technical support, and Mom, Carina, Mike, Rick, Vicky, Sydney and Alex will be with them for protection, and provide backup for us if we need it. As usual, Ellie will be in the van in case she'd needed, and will be the external command." He looked at Sarah, Ellie and Casey and they all nodded, agreeing with the allocations. The others, and Aunt D on screen, were also nodding as they thought about it.

Aunt D said "It sounds as though you have it all planned out, when are you going in?"

"After dark, they should have less people in there then, and we need a bit of time to build the devices as well."

Aunt D nodded "Very well, if there's nothing else…."

"Actually, there is Aunt D" he waved to Jeff, who responded "When RIOS was supposed to be released, the systems that the data was supposed to be sent to came on-line, so we managed to get their locations. None of the businesses that were hosting them have known Fulcrum connections, but they must have a Fulcrum presence to be hosting servers for them, we've sent the list through to you to have them investigated and stood down the teams we had on call to go in General. We managed to get into the systems when they came on line and grabbed the details for the next leg, as they didn't bother with much in the way of security controls for temporary systems. They were all either pointing to this facility that we're hitting tonight, or another location up near Barstow."

Aunt D sighed as she took her glasses off and pinched her nose "Thank you Commander Barnes, I'd actually forgotten all about that, maybe I'm getting too old for this…." She put her glasses back on and looked at the screen "You may have to come out of the shadows sooner than we planned Chuck."

He shook his head "I still haven't agreed to that Aunt D, and as I've said many times, I think Ellie's a better choice to take over…."

Ellie piped up "Don't drag me into this! You've always been the one slated to take over!"

Aunt D took in Sarah's confusion as she was trying to take this in "I'm sorry Sarah, this is an on-going argument between me and my godchildren about my succession planning, our two shining stars both keep insisting that the other take over…. Though we do have another shining star now, and maybe Chuck would be more willing to listen to the one he's vowed to love, honour and obey…. Anyway, do you need any more resources for tonight's operation?"

Chuck shook his head "No, Aunt D, the core team can handle most of it, and we've got our support team to catch the rats when we've crashed the systems and they run."

She nodded "Very well, good luck" and with that, she cut the connection.

Sarah looked at Chuck "She wasn't serious about what she just said, was she?"

It was Ellie who answered her "If she wasn't considering it seriously when she said it, she will be now, and it actually makes a lot of sense, as Mom said, you have Auntie Em's brain and the experience and reputation to make others listen to you as well as us."

"But, but…."

Chuck pulled her into his arms, saying "Shush, you're spiralling, don't worry, you can't be pushed into this if you don't want it." As he rubbed her back, he glared at Ellie over her head, but Ellie just shrugged, indicating that she was just telling the truth as she saw it.

* * *

Sarah was a little unsettled by the discussion they'd just had, so she put her work aside for a while and sat with Chuck as he built the combination devices to control and destroy the systems in the Fulcrum area. Some of these devices were Ethernet powered, some were battery powered. While he was doing this, he explained the long running argument that they'd been having for years with Aunt D about one of them taking over from her when she decided to step down, because she insisted that no-one else would be suitable. He had to concede that the workload was probably too much for one person, especially someone of her age, as their groups had been growing for the past fifteen years, and that her rank should be higher, given the importance of the groups she was controlling, but it had been a struggle to even get her promoted to Major General with the resistance they'd encountered from the old school types.

When he'd completed and tested the devices, they confirmed with Ellie and Casey that all the other arrangements had been made, and then they went upstairs to take a break and relax for a couple of hours before they went in. As they were already up there, they made dinner, and when the four of them sat down to dinner, it looked like a cosy domestic scene, but their discussion about supplies of blood and ammunition, devices to break into electronic locks and systems, that wasn't so domestic.

When it was time, they suited up and headed downstairs to the garage where the rest were waiting with the two control vans, when they'd changed to PS&T, the white CCE vans had been resprayed dark blue (not quite so obvious as the ubiquitous black vans but blended into the darkness just as well) with the logo in bright red, when they did these trips, different (more muted) logos covered the PS&T ones, and of course they bore different plates, Anna would be working in one van with Pete, Jeff in the other with Lucas. Between the two vans, they could carry the whole crew comfortably, while another two vans carried the strike team that provided their primary support. Nominally a FBI strike team, they represented two dozen of the best ex-SEAL, Delta force, SAD and NSA special ops operatives available, with four of the best special ops officers to command them. All of them had operated extensively with Chuck and Casey over the past twelve years and had left their units to join the team for them. Most of them had also operated with Bry, Ellie, Sarah, Carina, Zondra, Mary, Mike and Rick as well and had seen Jeff and Anna in action on missions on many occasions, so there was a strong bond of mutual respect between these men and the core team.

They parked the control vans close enough to the Roark Instruments building for the WiFi signal of the devices to work and went in. Chuck and Mei-Ling went in first, as they were best at blending into the shadows. The guard's pass worked on the door, and they quickly got behind the camera inside, with Chuck boosting Mei-Ling up so that she could get to the camera wiring and attach the remote access device. As soon as Anna said that she had control (she was the best at this), Chuck pulled the access control panel off, attaching another remote access device to the wiring in there and replacing the panel. The door released at the same time as she said she had control of the access system and they called the others in.

As they went through the building, they attached the combination devices to the network at the best locations that they could find, and the team in the two control vans started accessing the computers in the Fulcrum facility. Their first priority was the Intersect files, but they were siphoning everything they found out of the systems as fast as they could.

The operation was going well, until they heard a scuffle ahead of them, and they hid as best they could, planning to wait it out until the guards got rid the intruder, as the mission was more important than some random burglar or industrial spy. That plan went to shit when Chuck heard the man speak. Sarah couldn't work out why Chuck was swearing under his breath, and the grim look that he shared with Casey didn't shed any light on the matter until Chuck murmured "It's my father" to her.

They readied their pistols or MP5s and stepped out to engage the guards, but the one in charge, a tall, shaved headed man, was both damned quick and frighteningly perceptive. He somehow recognised at a glance that Chuck was Stephen's son, so before they were in position to properly engage them, he'd slipped behind Stephen and had a pistol to his head, with the safety off, Chuck noted.

His words were almost as much a surprise as his actions, as he politely said "I'm sorry Orion, I'd like to let you leave here with your son, but my employer has decreed otherwise, so the only way you're leaving here is with us." Chuck lowered his pistols, looking the man in the eye "So you'd shoot him rather than let us get him out of here?" The man nodded "It would be unprofessional not to, I'm sorry, but I have my orders."

At that moment, Roark strutted into the room "Damn, you actually got him Vincent! You really are as good as they said you were. How are you doing Stefan? Long time no see."

He belatedly noticed the pistol that Vincent was holding to Stephen's head "What are you doing Vincent, get that gun away from his head, I need him!"

"I can't do that Mr Roark."

"What do you mean, why not?"

Vincent just nodded in Chuck and the others' direction. When he saw them, Roark squeaked like a rat and scuttled behind some of the men "What are you doing, kill them!"

A few of the men started to raise their weapons, but Vincent's quietly authoritative "No" stopped them "That won't be necessary, they won't do anything as long as we're holding Orion."

"What do you mean, why won't they?"

"Because that young man there is his son, and he won't do anything to cause harm to his father."

Roark peeked over the shoulder of the man he was cowering behind, recognising Chuck from earlier that day "You, you're the one who tried to me to stop the RIOS release!" He turned back to Vincent "I don't care whether they'll do anything or not, kill them!"

"No, that's unnecessary Mr Roark, they'll leave peacefully in order to keep him safe."

Stephen spoke up then "Listen to the man Roark, if you do anything to my son and his…. friends, I won't do a thing to fix your Intersect, and that's what you need me for, isn't it?"

Though Roark missed Stephen's almost slip, Vincent didn't, and when he looked at them, he surmised from how Chuck and Sarah related to each other and the marks of the wedding rings on their hands what their relationship must be. For some reason though, he kept this to himself.

Roark stopped cowering, standing tall and making a show of straightening his ridiculous Hawaiian shirt "Alright Stefan, if that's your price to finish my Intersect, you son is safe, you have my word!"

As the door behind them opened, Vincent nodded down the hall and said to Chuck "If you and your friends would get back past that door, please?"

Chuck backed down the hall, not taking his eyes off Vincent, and Vincent noted how easily he stepped around everything behind him, an interesting young man, this.

When they were all on the other side of the door, Vincent said "Thank you" and called for it to he closed. Only when it was sealed did he take the pistol from Stephen's head and hand him off to one of the other men to lead him away.

As soon as Stephen was out of earshot, Roark hissed at Vincent "As soon as we're out of here, kill them!"

Vincent broke Chuck's gaze to look at him in disgust "No Mr Roark, you gave your word, they live!"

Stephen saw the exchange, and knowing what Roark was like, called out "Roark! I'm not touching anything until I've called my son and confirmed that they all got home OK, if you go back on your word I'll destroy your Intersect, and you!"

Roark looked like he was about to throw a tantrum, and hissed at Vincent "Fine! They can live, but you better make sure that they can't do anything to interfere with us leaving with the father!" and stomped off, shooing Stephen in front of him.

Vincent stayed in the room with a few of the guards, noting the way that Chuck, Sarah and Casey all looked at each other as Roark left and surmising that they'd picked up the exchange he'd had with Roark. After about ten minutes, the doors between them and the entrance opened and he nodded to say that they were free to go. He returned the nod of appreciation that these three who were obviously in charge gave him, and watched as they turned and walked away.

When they were outside, they didn't say anything over the radios, but went to the second van where his mother was waiting with Ellie. He held his mother as she cried, answering Ellie's. "How bad is it Chuck? What will Roark do to him?"

"I think he'll be OK until we can retrieve him, Roark needs him to fix his Intersect, and this one he has in charge of the security team, Vincent, he's an honourable man, he'll do the right thing as much as he can."

Ellie gave him a look of scorn at that, but Sarah stepped in "No, Ellie, he's right, this Vincent stopped anyone from attacking us because he knew that Chuck wouldn't do anything to put his father at risk, and he worked out with one look that Chuck was his son by the way. Then, after Roark gave your father his word that we'd be safe, but told him to kill us, he refused the order because he'd given his word, I don't know what he's doing with them, but he is an honourable man!"

None of this sounded believable, but when Ellie looked up at John, he nodded, agreeing with them.

Mary straightened up and wiped away her tears, she'd been listening to all of this and had a little more hope now. "So what are we going to do Charles?"

"We're going to get back to Quixote House as quickly as possible so I can try to work out where Roark took Dad, we also have to try and work out what the hell Dad thought he was doing, going in there by himself like that, but that can wait. We'll leave the other van here to monitor what they're doing until we can get one of the cars out here to park and use as a relay unit, because we can't wipe the facility now until we get Dad clear."

He looked at "Casey, can you call the support team and tell them to stand down, please? There won't be anyone for them to collect here tonight, but we'll need them when we locate where they've taken Dad."

Casey nodded, pulling out his phone as he climbed into the van. Mike, Alex, Sydney and Lucas hopped out and headed for the other van and as soon as they did that, they were on their way to Quixote House.

Everyone but Zondra went straight down to the Dungeon and Chuck brought up all the systems to track anything and everything he could think of to try and find his father. Zondra ducked into her office to change into some more normal clothes and took the Volvo back out to Roark Instruments, where Anna set it up to relay the signals back to Quixote house and they came back in the second van.

They did have a win, as the tracker in Stephen's phone was still registering on the grid and they could see that he was heading north when the signal dropped off the grid. Using satellite imagery and the FAA's systems, they identified a helicopter which was travelling in the same direction and speed as Stephen's phone before it dropped off the grid. They followed that helicopter until they lost it somewhere near Barstow, Chuck found a reference in the Fulcrum Intersect to a facility called Black Rock near Barstow, but it didn't list the location, then he remembered what Jeff had found out about where the data collected by RIOS was meant to be forwarded to.

"Jeff, what was that location near Barstow the RIOS data was going to?"

Jeff dug out what he had, but as it was outside of town, the best he could do was an area. The fact that this area matched where they'd lost the helicopter had to mean something, though, so Chuck started scanning through the satellite imagery for the area. The only structures in that area were a run down, but operating, motel and an apparently disused drive-in cinema. The suspicious thing about the drive-in was that fast forwarding through a month's worth of images showed a significant amount of traffic to that drive-in, and it wasn't kids looking for somewhere to have a bit of fun.

Chuck quickly checked the availability of satellites with ground-penetrating radar and other scanning equipment, and identified one that was far enough out that he had time to alter its orbit to pass over the site and get images of what was under the drive-in, so he quickly made all the necessary calculations and sent the commands to redirect the satellite.

After he'd sent the commands to the satellite, a pair of arms wrapped themselves around his neck, he didn't need to look up to see who it was, he'd felt her behind him so he just craned his head up to kiss Sarah. She looked at the screen and said "You know, strictly speaking, as an officer of the government, I should report this misuse of government property, but my problem is that the proper procedure is to report things of this nature to my superior, who would be you, so I doubt that it would do any good. Besides which, I just want to take you to bed. Does this abuse of your accesses mean that you've located him?"

"Perhaps, we tracked a helicopter from near the RI building to an area near Barstow before we lost it, this area also happens to be one of the two locations that the data extracted by the code hidden in RIOS was supposed to be sent to. The only structures out there are a motel, and this supposedly disused drive-in that's getting a lot of unexpected types of traffic, so I'm going to have a look at it with the ground-penetrating radar and other imaging equipment in that satellite to see what's under it."

"How long until the satellite will pass over the site?"

"About three and a half hours."

"OK, come to bed then, this has been a really stressful day for me and I need my husband to hold me for a while."

"Sarah, I really should keep looking in case I'm wrong about the drive-in."

"Chuck, you've done more than anyone else could so far, and do I need to remind you about your stunt this afternoon? I want my husband to hold me, now."

He reached around and pulled her into his lap "OK, no, yes Sweetheart, I love you!"

She kissed him again and said "Now that's the sort of response I expected in the first place, come on."

A bit over three hours later, Chuck gently kissed his peacefully sleeping wife and slipped out of bed to get back to the searches. When he got to the Dungeon, Jeff and Anna were there, going through what had come up from the searches that had been running. Obviously they'd set their alarms to give them 4-5 hours sleep and then came back down, as they were both in their pyjamas. The thought that crossed Chuck's mind when he saw Anna was 'at least she's wearing a bit more than she did when she slept with me', but he kissed her on the head and squeezed Jeff's shoulder as he passed them, grateful that they'd give up sleep to come down and help him with this.

Just before the satellite was due to pass over the drive-in site, Sarah stepped out of the elevator, looking adorable and hot in boy shorts, tank top and bed hair. Anna looked up as she walked up to them and said in a disgusted voice "Fuck, Sarah! Can't you have the decency to look bad at least ONCE in your life? I KNOW that I got a lot more sleep than you, but I look and feel like death warmed up and you look fucking gorgeous, as usual!"

Sarah gave her an embarrassed smile, as she hadn't expected anyone but Chuck to be down here, and kissed her on the head much as Chuck had as she passed her. Anna sighed as Sarah settled into Chuck's lap and he kissed her. He'd never been her's, and he'd made it clear to her from day one that he wouldn't be, but knowing that hadn't stopped her wishing for it. Jeff saw this and reached out to squeeze her knee to comfort her, which made her throw her arms around him, trying to hold back the tears. Chuck caught this over Sarah's shoulder, but saying anything would have just made it worse for her, so he stayed quiet, Sarah looked up at him when he did this, but he just shook his head slightly, indicating where the issue was with his eyes. She went to get off his lap but he shook his head again, so she nodded slightly and stayed where she was.

"What have you got on the site?"

"Well the satellite's about to go over, but I've had the search bots extract images of visits to the drive-in over the past few months, and it seems to be averaging about five hundred cars a month, the cars and people showing don't match kids or trysts, and many of the number plates I've managed to see have Fulcrum connections, it's definitely a Fulcrum site."

"Here come the results from the sweep…." They watched the image of an extensive underground bunker building on the screen. When Anna blurted out "Fuck!" when the extent of the bunker was shown, all Chuck could do was nod. As the rest of the data came in, they overlaid the radar image with the heat and other images, and when he heard Jeff swearing under his breath, he knew he was seeing the same thing he was "Jeff, we need to get some utilities usage stats on this place!" "Yeah, I'm on it Chuck."

Sarah looked at the images, but couldn't decipher them the way they did "What am I missing here Chuck?" He pointed to the large, intense hotspot "Unless I'm, sorry, we're, mistaken, that's a massive computing facility, so we should be able to find evidence of considerable utilities usage, also" he pointed out other, less intense, hotspots "It looks like they've got a force of over a hundred men down there. We need to get more intel, but this won't be easy."

He stripped away the heat and other images again and carefully examined the radar image, nodding after he'd enlarged one part of the image. Sarah asked "What is it?" He pointed to the location on the plan "That's the entrance, there's another tunnel here (pointing to another location) out to the wash behind the drive-in, but this is the way most people get in and out of the bunker, and it's…." He brought up a satellite image "Under the kids' playground?" He shook his head at that.

She pointed at a screen off to the side that was displaying something different "What's that Chuck?" "I'm looking into Vincent, because someone like him involved with Fulcrum, it just doesn't make sense. I think I could get him to help us if I can find the right trigger. If for nothing else, having someone like him working for Fulcrum makes them all the more dangerous."

When Sarah didn't say anything, he looked at her "You don't agree?"

"What? Oh no, I do, it's just, I'm fighting my training here, I've always been taught not to trust anyone or anything, but like you, I instinctively feel that we can trust him, and I definitely don't want someone as good as him working for them. You saw as well as I did how quickly he worked out that you were Stephen's son, and that we were married, and the fact that he moved fast enough to put a gun to your father's head before any of US could stop him, that makes him a man I want on our side, not on the other side. But how can we convince the powers that be he can be trusted? I've never had any experience of them being flexible at all."

"Well Jeff, Anna, Pete, Simon, Steve and Lucas were all hackers who were caught, and Mei-Ling was a Chinese spy, so we've got some precedence here, but we've got to find something to work with. The Fulcrum Intersect lists him as Vincent Smith, and it's no great surprise that I can't find any background on that name, but they don't include records of who he was before that. The way he moves and behaves says military to me and he's obviously intelligent and educated, so I'm running image recognition software over the military and education databases to try and get some hits on him."

He looked at the screens and realised that he had a lot of work to do "You should try and get some sleep, in the Apartment if not upstairs. I won't be able to leave this until I get some answers, but there's no reason to drag you through it."

She looked upset at the idea of that "I can help you!"

"Sweetheart, there's nothing else to be done, I'm just going to be wading through what the search engines came up with, trying to find something of use. I'll be sending these guys back to bed as well, like I said, there's no reason for everyone to be up for this."

"OK, I'll take a nap on the couch over there, if you promise to wake me if you find anything important."

He smiled and kissed her "Deal. I love you."

"Love you too!" She hugged him and went off to the couch, while he went over to send Jeff and Anna off to bed.

Chuck brought the main lights down when they left, so the only light was from the screens, and spent the next few hours slogging through the search engine results. He confirmed that there was enough power being consumed in that area to support the theory that there was a massive computer setup there, as suggested by the heat image, even though there was no official record of the usage, which in turn tagged the power company for investigation.

He went over the radar image a few more times, but the entrance under the playground and the access tunnel were the only ones that showed up. He'd tentatively identified cameras and security systems around the drive-in that they'd have to neutralise before they went in.

The image recognition software had identified a Vincent, or Vinnie, Jones in the Rangers who was listed as Killed In Action in Afghanistan in 2000, but also identified a Vincent Price, who'd been a few years younger and who'd disappeared about the time that Vinnie Jones went into the Reserves. Vinnie Jones' records were exemplary (and extraordinary), which begged the question of what they could have used to turn him, and Chuck kept coming back to the under age Vincent Price, that was the only thing that stood out.

Around this time, the big screen lit up with a video conference from Aunt D and Chuck quickly killed the sound, putting his finger to his lips and pointing to where Sarah was sleeping. He only turned the sound on when she nodded to indicate that she understood. When he brought the sound up, she asked "Chuck, what am I supposed to tell the Air Force about why their satellite was taken over?"

"They'll discover in a few hours that they had an administrative error, and the appropriate orders were just misfiled, it won't be a problem."

"Did this administrative error at least yield something of value?"

He said "You could say that" and threw up the radar image of the Fulcrum Black Rock site, giving her a chance to take it in before overlaying that with the heat image.

"Shit!" She quickly looked at the sleeping Sarah and said "Sorry" more quietly "Please tell me you have a plan to deal with this!"

"I don't have a full plan yet, but it's getting there. We do have another complication though, my father managed to get himself captured by Fulcrum when he went into the Fulcrum facility at RI and he's almost certainly in that Bunker, that's why we haven't wiped out the rest of the systems at RI yet."

"WHAT?"

This time, she did wake up Sarah, and she was on her feet, ready for action and looking for the threat before her brain registered what had woken her. Aunt D stared at her, wide eyed, as she'd never seen that type of instant on battle instinct before, but said "I'm sorry Sarah, but your husband has only just decided to let me know that his father, who is only slightly less important than one of you, has been taken by Fulcrum."

Sarah was wide awake now, and came over to sit in Chuck's lap again, not worried about proprieties, after all, she was dressed in skimpy sleepwear and it was only family here. "What would it have served to tell you before we located him and came up with a viable plan to rescue him and deal with the facility Auntie Di?" She was looking at the other screens, and looked back at Chuck in surprise "Armageddon devices and bunker busters?"

Chuck nodded shortly, and Sarah looked back at the videoconferencing screen "Auntie Di, Chuck has been working on this most of the night, and you know as well as I do that the rest of your teams couldn't have come up with a fraction of what he has so far, so all telling you earlier would have done was disturb your sleep like it has our's. It looks like Chuck will have the information to put a proper plan together in the next two to three hours?" Chuck nodded "And we'll fill you in on the details then, I can tell you that we'll need you to organise bunker buster strikes on two sites, and we'll need authorisation to do an in-depth investigation into a major power company though."

Aunt D blanched at that, saying "Maybe you're right, perhaps it would be better to wait until Chuck is ready to present his findings. Do you have any idea of how many bunker busters will be required Chuck?"

"Five to eight Aunt D, the bare minimum will be two busters each for the bunker and the RI facility, but it's possible that three or even four will be needed, and I'd like to have another one put up the access tunnel to the bunker to get anything they try to hide there."

She nodded "Can you at least tell me how he managed to get himself captured? I know that you wouldn't have taken him in there."

"He went in on his own in front of us, the first we knew of it was when we heard him being taken by the security people. The man in charge had a gun to his head before we could do anything…."

He nodded at Aunt D's shocked expression at that "He's damned good, but he doesn't fit there, we have to find a way to turn him, or at least make him realise that."

"Chuck…."

He shook his head "Aunt D, we'll send you the security footage of the incident, when you watch it you'll understand. Anyway we couldn't do anything when he was controlling the situation like that, but once Roark had taken Dad away he released us, we started tracking Dad as soon as we got back here and I managed to use other resources to identify the helicopter that Dad's phone signal was on before it dropped off the grid and track it to somewhere near Barstow before we lost it. We checked the second location that Jeff identified the RIOS data going to, and it's in the the same area, so we started investigating, that was why I needed that satellite. From the intel that provided, we know that there are over a hundred people there and a large computer installation, probably another Intersect computer, seeing how they've taken Dad there. We'll go in, extract Dad and place the same sort of combination Access and Wipe devices we did in the Fulcrum facility at RI, when we've got what we can out of their systems, we'll trigger the devices wipe out everything there, and at the RI facility simultaneously, and then hit them with the bunker busters to finish the clean-up."

Aunt D nodded sombrely, he was obviously further along with his planning than he was prepared to say, and he was as thorough as he usually was. She was remorseful about the way she'd reacted but she'd apologise later, she didn't want to put him, no them, Sarah was very much a part of the process here, off at this crucial stage. She nodded "I'll wait for the plan then, do you need me to organise anything other than what Sarah said for the core mission?"

He shook his head "No, this needs to be a surgical strike, and our people and support team will handle that." She nodded, and cut the connection.

Chuck sent her the security footage as promised and they got to work on putting everything together.

A couple of hours later, Stephen called to confirm that they'd been released unharmed as promised. Chuck started a trace on the call and held his hand up for silence as he answered it on speaker "Hello?"

"Charles, are you alright?"

"Yes Dad, Vincent let us all go after you left with Roark."

"Did you see your mother, is she alright?"

OK, he was playing the game, so maybe he hadn't slipped too far after all.

"Yes Dad, she's here with us."

"Stephen.. (Chuck pointed his finger at her to remind her to watch what she said) I'm fine, I hope to see you soon."

At that point Roark's oily voice intruded. "Hey Mary, it's been ages since I saw you, did ya miss me?"

Mary looked a little ill at that thought. "Roark, do you remember what I told you I'd do to you if you came near me again (they clearly heard a gulp over the phone), well that's nothing compared to what I'll do to you if you harm my husband in any way, do you understand?"

There was a brief silence and then they heard Roark saying brusquely to Stephen "You've got your proof that I've held up my side of the bargain, so go fix my Intersect!" and the connection was broken, but the call had been long enough to for the trace to confirm Stephen's location in the Black Rock site under the drive-in.

After the call, they contacted Aunt D to fill her in on it and go over the plan, and by then she'd arranged for three F-16s to be readied with bunker busters at Edwards, as well as two A-10s to be brought over from Nellis to be on-hand to handle any clean-ups at Barstow, while teams would be on the ground at both sites to mop up anyone who got out of the Fulcrum facilities.

The teams went to Edwards first to go over the plan with the pilots (not surprised to find that, with her usual efficiency, Aunt D had arranged for people who'd worked with the team before) and give them the images and co-ordinates they needed for their targeting information, leaving there just before sundown to head to the Black Rock location.

As when they infiltrated the RI facility, Chuck and Mei-Ling went in first to attach the devices to take over the cameras and security system. They were wearing suits that rendered them almost invisible to regular and thermal cameras, so they got the devices attached without being discovered and Anna and Jeff had control of the systems in minutes. As soon as they were in control, the rest of the team moved in, Chuck, Sarah, Casey, Bry, Mary, Zondra and Mei-Ling, as their best and most experienced fighters, were each leading a four man fire team from their support team, while Carina, Mike, Rick, Sydney, Alex and Vicky, held back to guard the tech team of Jeff, Anna, Pete and Lucas at the control vans unless they were needed, and Ellie was on-hand for medical support and external command.

It didn't take long to identify the bouncing pony covering the access hatch and they went in, one team at a time, each team heading off in a different direction to try and locate Stephen, setting the access and wipe devices as they went. They took out anyone they encountered with suppressed weapons, as they couldn't afford to have anyone raising an alarm before they located Stephen and extracted him.

As soon as the access devices were activated, the tech team in the vans got to work at getting into the systems and grabbing what they could, these guys were the best hackers the team had after Chuck.

It was Sarah who found Stephen, she reported it to the others and then, after confirming that he was OK, grabbed his shirt and jerked him in close to hiss at him "If Chuck gets hurt in this stupid rescue, I'll kill you myself!" When he opened his mouth to voice his indignation at that, she slapped him hard to shut him up and hissed at him "Shut up you idiot, before you bring them down on us!"

Once she'd picked the lock on the shackles that kept him at his workstation, she indicated for two of her fire team to get him out of there and ran a rear guard action with the other two. When they got back to the ladder they came into the facility by, Chuck was waiting with his fire team, but when Stephen tried to speak to him, he just hissed "Quiet!" at him and pushed him onto the ladder after the two of Sarah's men who'd already gone up. He made Sarah go up after him, but followed her to avoid arguments and delays.

When they and Sarah's fire team were up top, they confirmed, again, that Casey, Bry, Mary, Zondra and Mei-Ling were still downstairs with their fire teams, along with Chuck's fire team, who were securing the bottom of the ladder. Chuck and Sarah grabbed Stephen and dragged him back to the vans, leaving Sarah's fire team to secure the top of the ladder.

As they went, he called again for the others to get out, as they had the prime objective. By the time they reached the vans, he'd had it with his father, so he ordered him bound and gagged and thrown in one of the vans before he climbed into the primary control van (it had more equipment than the other one) and called for the F-16s and A-10s to take off and proceed to their target areas, ordering them to hold off until cleared to bomb the sites, as they still had people in the facility.

With that call made, he asked Jeff and the others how they were going with collecting the data from the facility. The reports were that it was going well, but they wouldn't have a chance to get everything before they fried and bombed the sites. He nodded at that and went to key up the Armageddon devices at both sites to trigger on his command while he waited for the others to clear the facility. After about fifteen minutes he smiled to himself as he listened to what was being said between Casey and one of his fire team, it basically came down to "I'm not going to be the one to tell your wife why you were the last man down here if anything happens to you, Sir, so get going and I'll be right behind you!"

A minute later he heard Casey report "Last men leaving the target area now." and he told Jeff and the others to cancel the file transfers. As soon as they'd confirmed that they'd done so he triggered the Armageddon devices and called for the planes to start their bombing runs, stepping outside to watch the fireworks. The two F-16s for Black Rock had crossed runs, one dropped two bunker busters on a diagonal across the facility, while the other one (the best pilot they had) put his first bunker buster straight up the access tunnel and then dropped his second one towards the far corner. They were timed to go up simultaneously, so the surface rose, and then fell back, collapsing into itself with the cinema screen toppling into the depression left as it subsided.

At that point, Chuck ordered his father released and brought to him. When he came up, Chuck asked without any emotion "Was Roark here?" His father just looked confused "What? What are you talking about?"

Chuck swore and grabbed him by the shoulder dragging him forward and pointing at the subsidence "Was Ted Roark in there?" Stephen looked at him in horror "What have you done?"

This time it was Ellie who grabbed him and slapped him hard "He did what he had to to recover you after you stupidly interfered with our work and got yourself captured, now answer the question, was Ted Roark in there?"

"I don't…. Yes, he came to demand to know what progress I'd made about half an hour ago."

Chuck looked into the van, calling "Jeff?" "On it Chuck!"

A few minutes later Jeff called again to say "I can't see anyone coming or going for over an hour Chuck, so if he was there half an hour ago, he should be there now!" Chuck nodded his thanks, and asked the support team to secure the site until it was handed over to the NSA teams, and they'd at least done the initial investigations. He handed over some pictures of Roark and Vincent, asking for confirmation that Roark was dead, and that if Vincent was recovered alive, that they'd secure him for the team.

The senior officer looked at the site and said "Recovered alive from THAT, how could anyone survive that?"

Chuck shook his head "I don't know, but if anyone can, it will be him, the man's like a human cockroach and Bill, if he is alive, I'd like him recovered with as little damage as possible, please?"

Bill nodded and said that he'd do what he could, Chuck nodded his thanks and told the team to mount up, they were headed back. Not wanting to have anything to do with his father at that point, he was sent back with his mother back in the other van from the one that Chuck, Sarah, Ellie and John were in.

As soon as they were back at Quixote House, they went to the Dungeon and initiated a video conference with Aunt D, who immediately proceeded to scream at Stephen about how his selfish stupidity had endangered his family, the team and the whole operation. Stephen was defiant, but he started to crumble, given that everyone was against him, even Mary.

They were starting to wind down and Aunt D was telling Stephen that he had two choices, he could go to Dr Dreyfus, or he could just go, because there was no way he was coming anywhere near anyone on the team or any of their facilities again until Dr Dreyfus had cleared him as being fit for duty, and Dr Dreyfus would be given very clear parameters on what that entailed this time, when Chuck got a call. He stepped away to take it, and it was Bill "We've recovered and positively identified the body of Theodore Roark and…." Chuck could just about hear him shaking his head "and we've recovered your cockroach, he's battered, but not seriously injured. Do you want him brought to Glendale Station?"

"Yes please, and Bill, thanks!"

When Chuck came back to the group with a smile on his face, everyone wanted to know why. They didn't really swallow it when he said he was just glad to have confirmation that Roark was dead, even when he added "Maybe now some people can stop fixating on him and concentrate on their work!", looking at his father, but they had bigger issues to address in the clean-up of the operation and moved past it, even though Sarah obviously wasn't about to let it go until she got an answer.

 **A/N: Sorry NN, Vinnie was too much of a thug for me to include him, but I did use his name ;)**


	17. Vincent

**The first part of this is rough for Stephen.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and the real world's somewhere else.**

Aunt D looked at Stephen, "Are you prepared to go to Doctor Dreyfus and work with him until you're fit to rejoin the team?"

Stephen looked at Mary, but if he expected to see forgiveness and compassion, he was disappointed. Her gaze was unrelenting as she asked him "Do you know how many people you made our son kill to save you? Do you know what that does to him every time he's forced to do it?"

He pointed at Sarah "It's her, she's a killer, I've seen how many she's killed, and everything else she's done! She's the reason he kills people now."

Mary showed that she was still one of the best with the speed that she flashed across the room, hitting him hard enough to dislocate his jaw. If Stephen had looked up he would have seen his wife and children all looking at him with disgust and loathing, but he was just huddled on the floor, moaning in pain from his jaw.

Ellie stepped up to him, asking "John, can you get him up for me, please?" He nodded and hoisted her father roughly to his feet. Ellie said "Hold his head still please John", and when he did, she wrenched his jaw back into place. When John went to let him go, though, Chuck said "John, can you hold him there like that for me, please?"

With a nod of thanks, he turned to the screen, asking "Aunt D, put up all my mission reports, with dates, please."

"Chuck…."

"No, he needs to see this!"

She acquiesced with a nod and displayed his mission reports with the stats of what had happened on those missions.

Stephen squeezed his eyes shut when he saw what was up on the screen, until Chuck hissed at him with dangerous venom "Open your fucking eyes and look!"

As he was too afraid of him at that moment to refuse, Stephen did as he was ordered, and Chuck continued in a flat voice as the mission reports scrolled down "This is what I've had to do in the service of our country, DAD, but all of that was necessary in the context of the operations or missions we were engaged in. If you actually care to look, you will see a marked drop in those stats from the time that Sarah came back into my life, because of the way that we've changed the nature of the operations that we have been doing since she joined us, until yesterday that is."

"The fact is, of the over two hundred deaths that occurred between Roark Instruments and Black Rock over the past two days, including the innocent nerds who went to see the RIOS release but ended up dying when they couldn't get out of the burning building, I'm pretty sure that over ninety percent would have been avoidable if weren't for the paranoid and insane actions of one man, YOU, because instead of helping us decipher what was going on there, you were determined to get up on your crazy soapbox about the terrible things Roark did to YOU and interfered with our operation because of that. What's more, we would have been able to extract far more actionable intel from both these sites to help us deal with the threats to the country, if not the world, if we weren't constantly racing against the clock because of what you did. So don't you EVER accuse my wife of anything like that again."

He looked at Aunt D on screen before turning back to his father, still being held in a headlock by John.

"You haven't given Aunt D an answer yet, so I'm changing the terms of this. Now, your choice is between being voluntarily or involuntarily committed, if you agree to voluntarily commit yourself to Doctor Dreyfus's care and actively work with him in every way necessary to find your way back to being a sane, functional human being, and you're successful to Doctor Dreyfus's and my satisfaction, you may be accepted back into the team if, IF! you're deemed stable and functional enough, though you'll be closely monitored. If you make a good effort and we deem that you're no longer a danger to society, but you haven't improved enough to be fit to rejoin the team, we'll set you up in a comfortable life somewhere on the east coast, of course you'll be monitored to ensure that you don't become dangerous again. Mom and Ellie are free to choose what they want to do with you if that happens, don't make the mistake of trying to see me or my family though, because if I catch you anywhere near my wife or children, I will end you! If you refuse to seek treatment, or you just go through the motions without making an active attempt to correct your psychosis, you will stay locked away and medicated to protect society from you, you've caused more than enough harm already."

He looked at Ellie and Mary and they nodded, they may not like what he was saying, but they agreed with it. He looked back at his father "Well, DAD, what's it to be, will you commit to making an active effort to become a sane and functional human being and atone for the harm you've done, or will we commit you into a facility where you will be happily medicated and you can't harm anyone any more?"

"Oh, sorry John, you can let him go now." John let Stephen go and moved across to take Ellie's hand.

When Stephen just stared at him for over a minute without saying a word, Chuck nodded "Hippy heaven it is!" He turned to the screen "Aunt D, can you make the arrangements please?"

"No! I'll do what I have to, just don't lock me away again!"

Chuck turned back to him "Dad, you're not going to be free to do what you want until we're confident that you aren't a danger to society, I thought I made that clear?"

"I can't go back into an asylum again, please Charles?"

Chuck looked at the screen "Do you think that Doctor Dreyfus would be prepared to have Dad stay with him for as long as he's getting treatment Aunt D?"

She nodded "Yes Chuck, that was what we were discussing."

Chuck nodded and turned back to his father "If you stay with the Doctor, you will follow ALL the rules to the letter, any breach of the rules, no matter how slight, or you try to leave just once and you go straight into the involuntary committal scenario, do you understand that Dad?"

"Yes! Like I said, I'll do what I have to!"

Chuck looked at Mary and Ellie "Mom, Ellie, is this acceptable to you?"

Mary nodded "Yes Chuck, that is acceptable."

Ellie nodded too "Yes, but what Chuck said about going near his family goes for me, too, if you're released!"

"Aunt D, how soon can we arrange transport to take my father to Doctor Dreyfus's?"

"We can get a transport over there tomorrow."

Chuck nodded "Thank you. Uncle Bry, will you escort him over there for us and ensure that he's in Doctor Dreyfus's custody, please?"

Bry nodded "Of course Chuck."

"Thank you Uncle Bry."

"Dad, you'll be spending tonight in a holding cell because, quite frankly, I don't trust you in the state you're in. And if you ever want to come back here, you better make a serious effort to straighten yourself out, because if you don't, you'll never set foot in this building, or see most of your family again."

He waved him away and Bry took Stephen by the arm to lead him off to the holding cell.

* * *

When his father was gone, Chuck looked around, lost, and said "I'm sorry, but I need to take a bit of a break" and headed for their elevator, Sarah caught up to him when he stopped to whisper something to John and took his hand. The others looked after him, but only his father would have needed to watch the state he was in to understand what it had taken for him to do what he just did.

When they were gone, Ellie leaned in to ask John in a whisper what Chuck had said to him and he leant down to tell her "He was just letting me know, in case they aren't back down before he arrives, that the support team are bringing Vincent in, he was recovered alive from Black Rock, as Chuck half expected he would be. He'll need some minor attention and then we'll put him in a holding cell until we can process him."

"He lived through THAT?"

"Yeah, Chuck suggested that we look into Vinnie Jones' records, we'll do that after."

Upstairs, Chuck looked a question at Sarah and when she nodded, grabbed a bottle and a couple of tumblers from the wet bar in the private lounge, heading out to the roof garden and the outdoor furniture there. As soon as he'd settled into one of the chairs, she settled into her favourite seat, his lap, and kissed him.

As planned, the kiss calmed him a little and she filled the two tumblers, handing one to him and settling back into his arm.

Sarah gave him time to think, regain his composure and get through two drinks before saying "Talk to me Chuck."

He took another sip of his drink and looked into the glass as he quietly asked "Was I too hard on him?"

She ran her fingers through his hair "I don't think so, no, he's out of control, he screwed up our operations and put everyone at risk, and as you said, because of him, people died who wouldn't have had to otherwise, and he's the only one that can't see that he's in need of serious help. I don't think you said anything to him that wasn't true and necessary."

She had a sip of her own drink and thought for a moment "Besides, don't you think that your mother or Ellie would have said something if they believed that you'd said something untrue or unfair?"

He gave a one shoulder shrug, the best he could manage, seeing as his other arm was wrapped around her. She reached over to pull his face around to look at her "No, you weren't too hard, you did what you had to to make him accept that he had to get help, because he was too deluded to accept it otherwise!" He nodded doubtfully, and she leaned in to kiss him.

The kiss started out as one sided, but that changed as he tightened his arm to pull her into him, and it was getting ever more intense when Sarah's phone went off. She growled as she pulled it out of her pocket to answer it with a "WHAT?"

She hadn't bothered to look at who it was, so it was a surprise when Ellie asked in a small voice "Is this a bad time?" Sarah gave a shaky little laugh and said "You could say that, but it's OK El"

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to make sure he's OK"

Sarah looked at Chuck "He's still second guessing himself about how he handled things with your father, but I think he'll be OK, we'll just have to keep telling him until he gets it through his thick skull that he did the right thing."

She laughed at the half amused, half annoyed look Chuck was giving her as he muttered "Where did I get the stupid idea that it would be a good thing for the most important people in the world to me to get along?" Sarah had put the phone on speaker, so she asked "Did you hear that?"

* * *

Ellie laughed "Yeah, Chuck, the other thing I was ringing about is that your cockroach is already here, they brought him down by helicopter. I checked him out and he's OK, so John's supervising him having a shower and putting him into a cell now."

"Thanks El, I'll be down in a bit."

When she'd disconnected the call, Sarah said "Cockroach?"

"Vincent, he came out of the Black Rock facility alive and in fairly good shape. When I asked Bill to secure him for us if he came out alive, he was saying that no-one could have come out of that, so I pointed out that Vincent's pretty much a human cockroach, indestructible, and I guess the tag stuck."

"There's got to be a story there?"

"When he was in the Rangers, he was listed as KIA four separate times before he finally disappeared and was officially written up as KIA, but obviously he didn't die then, either. He's had vehicles he was in blown up, got caught in an ambush, had his platoon wiped out, was in a helicopter crash, but every time, he'd limp into a camp or a base somewhere a couple of days to a week later to explain what happened, and be back in action a few days later. After all that, I asked Bill to watch for him, as I was betting that four bunker busters wouldn't be enough to finish him off either, guess I was right."

"So what's his story Chuck? I expect that you've got most of it by now?"

"Well some of this is supposition, but I believe that his real name is Vincent Price…." She looked at him in disbelief "Oh, so THAT name you know?" "Of course, those old movies were the only things playing in the hotels I grew up in." "Uh huh, Well young Master Price was doing exceptionally well in high school in Tennessee, until he suddenly disappeared in eighty five when he was fourteen, and seventeen year old Vinnie Jones joined the reserves in Kentucky soon after as a combat engineer. Vinnie managed to wrangle loopholes in the system to get himself an Army ROTC scholarship then without any paperwork other than what he put together to join the reserves, and he was commissioned in eighty nine as a distinguished military graduate, going into active duty in ninety one. He graduated from the Special Forces Assessment and Selection course at Fort Brag in ninety six, but for some reason he went back to the Rangers in Afghanistan after that, his fifth KIA incident as Captain Jones in two thousand was apparently staged like the event that the NSA used to get John on-board. Well, I better go talk to him and see if I can get some answers."

"I'm coming with you!"

"Sar….." He gave up when he saw the look she was giving him "OK."

In the Dungeon, Chuck removed anything that could be used as a weapon, and Sarah removed her weapons as well, only taking a pistol in with her. They stopped to look in at Stephen, but he was practising his martyr act, so they shook their heads and went on to Vincent's cell. Chuck pressed the button for the intercom "Could you go to the bunk and lie down, please? We'd like to come in and talk to you." Vincent nodded and did as requested, but his eyes took in everything as they entered the cell and sealed the door behind them, with Sarah staying by the door with her pistol at the ready while Chuck moved to sit down opposite the bunk.

When he was settled, Vincent spoke "Orion's son….", but Chuck cut in to say "Please, I prefer Chuck, if it's all the same to you?" Vincent nodded "Chuck, I thought that it might have been you when everything went out like it had at Roark Instruments and expected that the site was going to be breached, so I dove under the stairs in the stair well, I must admit that the bunker busters were a surprise though."

Chuck nodded "Well Mister, I'm sorry, do you prefer Smith, Jones or Price?" Vincent's eyes widened at hearing those names, especially that last one, but he replied easily "If we are using first names, it's Vincent, Chuck." Chuck nodded "Vincent, it would hardly have been an effective attack if people predicted what we'd be doing, now would it?"

Vincent shook his head with a smile, but the smile was short lived as he glanced in the direction of Stephen's cell. "The purpose of that attack was obviously to rescue your father, so it was a surprise to see him locked up down here with me now?" Chuck glanced in the same direction with a frown, and said "How about a trade of information Vincent, because we were hoping that you'd share how you came to be part of Fulcrum?"

That made Vincent narrow his eyes "That depends on who 'we' refers to Chuck, is it the charming but obviously professional couple here with me, I see you have your rings back on now by the way?" Chuck glanced down and smiled "Well there was obviously no point trying to hide it from you any more, was there?" Vincent nodded and went on "Is it the group that also includes that other charming couple, the man who was with you and your sister, the doctor who tended to me, or is it the government organisation that you work for, which I haven't been able to work out yet. Your lovely wife obviously came from the CIA, but you didn't, you're obviously special ops, and I'm seeing FBI practices as well in you, but that's not all you are."

Chuck shared a look with Sarah and she nodded "We in this instance is definitely my wife and I Vincent, and to a lesser degree it includes the group which my sister and brother in law are also part of. It doesn't, at this time however, include the organisation that we work for."

Vincent considered that for a moment and nodded, "In that case yes, I will trade what you want to know for what I asked."

Chuck nodded as he looked off towards his father's cell "My father was always brilliant but unstable, but about twenty years ago a series of events pushed him completely over the edge, and damaged him. My mother and her friends got him help and brought him back enough to function in the real world, and Mom has stayed with him to try and keep him on track, but his underlying problems made him decide that he didn't need help any more and he refused to continue with his treatment. Since then he's been backsliding quite a bit, and when we had an operation to go after Roark, his paranoid delusions made him interfere with our operation, and also think that he could achieve more by himself than we could. That was why he snuck into that facility ahead of us two nights ago and got himself caught. A lot of plans were ruined and a lot of people died unnecessarily because of his crazy delusions, so it was decided that he's too much of a danger to himself and others the way he is, and he's being forced to go back and get the treatment he needs. He won't be released this time until he proves that he's no longer a danger to himself and others. I didn't trust him not to go off on on some crazy exploit, so he's being kept locked up until he's taken away to get help."

Vincent was quiet for about a minute "That must have been hard to tell me, Chuck, so thank you. By the way, you know that you probably would have been in and out of there without us knowing if you hadn't tried to rescue him, don't you? We had no sign you were there until you stepped out, but we'd tracked him from where he broke in."

Chuck nodded, "That was part of the problem, but you would have known, because we were going to fry the place like we did the rest of RI after we got what we could out of it, then arrest everyone as they tried to escape. As it was, it was fried and bombed last night at the same time Black Rock was, now I believe that the deal was for a trade of information Vincent?"

Vincent nodded "When I was in Afghanistan, someone came to me, saying that they wanted to help me and that they'd seen information that the CIA were coming to get me, because they'd uncovered evidence that Vinnie Jones was a false identity. They told me that I was going to be interrogated until I gave up who I was working for and what I was there for. The idea of being tortured until I gave up information that I didn't have, because I wasn't working for anyone but the Army and the United States of America, didn't appeal to me, especially as I knew that they wouldn't stop until I was dead if they believed I had information to give and I wasn't telling them anything, so I asked how they could help me?"

"Alarm bells went off when they said that I could be killed in action again, but I'd stay dead this time, because most people didn't know about that…." his eyes narrowed at the way they were both nodding, because they obviously DID know about how many times he'd supposedly killed in action, only to return, and he paused as he realised that that explained the cockroach comment from the man who took charge of him at Black Rock "but because Vinnie Jones WAS a fake identity, as you know…." Chuck looked him in the eye as he nodded at that "I didn't think that I could afford to take the chance that he was lying about the CIA coming for me, so I took him up on his offer."

Vincent stopped there to say "I didn't create Vinnie Jones in eighty five for any illicit reasons, in fact I was trying to get AWAY from a criminal life when I did that, you see my Dad was part of the Cornbread Mafia, as it later became known, and he was about to take me out of school to work the marijuana crops with him, so I ran away to Kentucky and used the system to get a new start as seventeen year old Vinnie Jones, on an ROTC scholarship at the University of Kentucky."

Chuck nodded "I didn't know about your father, but I worked out how you got into the ROTC scholarship and the Army. The story that the CIA was coming after you for the false identity was a lie though, there's absolutely nothing in the CIA's or Army's records to indicate that they knew anything about that. By the way, your real name, Vincent Price, is there a story behind that?"

Vincent grimaced "Yes, apparently the actor was supposedly a third cousin or something of our's, so my father thought it would be a great idea to name me after him." Chuck grinned at that, but Sarah cut in with "Guys, this is interesting, but we need to move this along!" Vincent glanced at her, taking in the fact that for all she was looking friendly enough, she hadn't relaxed her grip on that pistol, and it was a sure thing that she knew how to use it, so he nodded and continued.

"They staged it so that I was supposedly in a vehicle that was completely obliterated by a bomb, and the next thing I knew, I was on an army transport back to the world as Vincent Smith. When they got me back here, I was working with a number of military people who were convinced that Fulcrum was on the side of right, so I became a little more comfortable with the idea of being part of Fulcrum, and that was when I was given my first real assignment, to head up the hunt for a CIA scientist called Orion who'd escaped, because we had to rescue him before the CIA got him back."

"That hunt took me all over the world for five or six years, we'd see evidence that he was somewhere, but when we got there there'd either be nothing there, or we'd come up against the local warlords or gangs and have to fight our way out…." He stopped at the little smile on Chuck's face "That was you?" Chuck nodded "We've been laying false trails for Dad since the mid nineties, because rogue elements of the CIA WERE looking for him, so whenever we had a chance to lead them to someone who'd want to fight it out, we would."

Vincent nodded "You were good, the evidence we found convinced us that we just kept missing him, so we kept chasing the trail you left. Anyway, about two years ago, that trail went cold and while I still had the hunt for Orion as my primary objective, I was recalled to work on other things back here. That was when I started to see what Fulcrum was really like, and I didn't like what I was seeing at all, so I've been trying to work out a way to get out. Then out of the blue, Orion walks straight into the Fulcrum facility that I'd been called in to improve the security of after the boss's business in the building it was part of was wiped out, and I captured him. I was in the process of putting together a case for my direct superiors to release me from my obligation to Fulcrum, considering that I'd delivered on my primary objective, when you wiped out Black Rock."

Chuck nodded, thinking, and then looked at Sarah, when she nodded, he looked back at Vincent. "For a start Vincent, your boss, Ted Roark, is dead, and we're starting the process of dismantling the rest of Fulcrum, so you're out of a job. This means that your most likely option is that you'll get processed with the other Fulcrum members and then spend the rest of your life in a black site, or more likely, get an ultimatum from some other organisation like Fulcrum to join them or die." He let it hang at that.

Vincent waited for him to continue, and when he didn't, he spoke. "Neither of those outcomes is at all appealing, and as you described that as an option, I presume that you have something else in mind Chuck?"

Chuck nodded "The other option is that you commit to joining us in the fight against people like your erstwhile employers. I can't guarantee that I can pull this off, of course, but I'm fairly confident that I will."

Vincent looked at him for a while "Have you considered that this insanity that you've described in your father may be hereditary Chuck? You do realise what a crazy idea that is, don't you? What guarantee do you have that I won't just agree to this, then kill you and anyone else who gets in my way to escape as soon as I have a chance?"

"Yes, that has crossed my mind, but there's no evidence to support the theory so far. What I'm proposing is unconventional, to be sure, but I don't believe it's crazy, in fact we've done pretty much the same thing before. And while I can't be certain that you won't do that, of course, I, we, have a good feeling about you Vincent, so I don't believe that you will. Anyway, if I'm wrong about you and you did manage to do that, my wife would track you down and kill you."

Vincent turned to look at her "You mean she'll try to!"

"Oh no, she WILL, my love is one of the most dangerous people in the world."

Vincent asked Sarah "Do you agree with this deal that your husband has offered me?"

She looked him in the eye and nodded "Yes, as Chuck said, we both feel that we can trust you, but believe this. If you try to betray us, wherever in the world you run to, I WILL track you down and kill you, though not as quickly as you'll want me to."

He nodded easily at that, not doubting their conviction that she could do it, and she relaxed a little.

Vincent turned back to Chuck with a smile on his face "OK Chuck, as it appears that I won't be replacing a bombastic fool with a lunatic after all, if you can pull this off, I'll commit to helping you in this task, do you need me to sign this in blood or something?"

Chuck laughed "No, keep your blood, you'll probably need it with us, as we do seem to get injured fairly frequently on this job, all too frequently for the team's doctor's liking."

He looked at Sarah and she nodded her agreement with what he was offering again, so he turned back to Vincent "You obviously can't use the name Vincent Smith any more, and there's too much chance of someone recognising the name of Vinnie Jones and asking questions, because you were fairly famous as him, do you want to go back to Vincent Price?"

Vincent grimaced and shook his head "No thank you, that name was part of what I was running away from in eighty five. Why don't we use the name that you've given me, cockroach?"

It was Chuck's turn to grimace "Sorry about that, I was just trying to tell him that you seem to be able to survive anything, but it seemed to stick. We should be able to come up with something from that though…. Cochran? No, that doesn't seem to suit you, Roach? Maybe, but no style, LaRoach? Yes, Vincent LaRoach sounds good, what do you think?"

"Make it Vinnie LaRoach and yes. I got used to Vinnie in the fifteen years I was using it, and I prefer it now."

Chuck nodded "Vinnie LaRoach it is! Now I'm sorry Vinnie, but until we can get all this signed off, you'll need to stay in here."

Vincent nodded easily again and sat up to shake his hand when Chuck came over, saying "Hopefully you'll be part of the team soon."

With that, Sarah nodded to Vincent as she opened the door, and they both left, sealing it behind them.

* * *

They went back to work then, wading through the reams of data that had been collected from the Fulcrum facilities in RI and Black Rock. Chuck was relieved that they hadn't seemed to have made any further developments on the Fulcrum Intersect since the version that they took from the Meadow Branch facility, so it appeared that they'd stopped the development of it there.

With over a day to collect everything in the main Fulcrum facility in the RI building, they had records of just about everything to do with Fulcrum. One of those files included detailed reports of how Vincent had been coerced into joining Fulcrum, and everything he'd done for them, which beefed up the case Chuck was putting together considerably, as did the fact that Vinnie Jones was created when Vincent Price ran away from home to avoid being dragged into a criminal enterprise by his father at fourteen.

The collected information identified most of the people and organisations associated with Fulcrum, and the Special Projects Group was allocated the responsibility of leading the world wide exercise to hunt down and apprehend everyone involved with it. This led to the size of the group being effectively doubled, even before the other groups that came under their control for the purpose of the exercise were added. Over time, the wave of arrests across the country, and elsewhere in the world, left large holes that extended right to the top in many government organisations, as well as in the government itself, it also generated quite a bit of fear in many circles regard to how much power this Special Projects Group wielded, and what they were capable of.

* * *

At the start of this exercise, the records which proved that Ted Roark was the head of a criminal organisation like Fulcrum provided the excuse the government needed to get into his private files, and they found something there which was of great benefit to Stephen, because with his massive ego and his need to hang onto trophies to prove the fact that he'd actually bested the great Stefan Bartol, he'd retained enough evidence to prove that the Roark Instruments empire was in fact based on what he'd stolen from Stefan, and others as well, but the majority of it was what he'd stolen from Stefan. That led to RI and the majority of Roark's fortune being signed over to him. Of course, they had to change Stephen Barton's identity back to Stefan Bartol for this to happen, but most of the people they'd been hiding him from were dead now, and aside from the few public appearances required for him to assume control of Roark's resources, he was still being hidden from the world.

Even after compensation was made to the others Roark had stolen designs and intellectual property from, Stefan was an extremely wealthy man, with a multi-million dollar annual income. Of course, what the rest of the world didn't know was that while Chuck had allowed him to formally take control of Roark's company and fortune, he'd made it quite clear that nothing had changed in regard to what he'd been told, if he didn't make the effort to successfully work his way back to be a stable, functional human being, he'd live his life out locked away and medicated. The story that the world heard was that the new owner of Roark Instruments was a recluse, and others were running the business for him. There were enough eccentric millionaires around that the story was accepted readily enough.

* * *

Given that as far as anyone else knew, Roark Instruments and the Fulcrum facilities were just wiped out, much like Fulcrum had wiped out the NSA's Intersect facility, and Roark Instruments' head office and structure now had to be rebuilt, they decided that this would be a good opportunity to both trap the Fulcrum members, and flush the dross that Roark had accumulated from the company. To this end, they put it about that Roark Instruments was closing down, and arranged for a large multi-agency task force to play the part of receivers, processing staff out of the company and issuing severance cheques.

Every one of the points where they were conducting this exercise had lists of the names of anyone working for or affiliated with Fulcrum, and anyone who appeared on these lists was arrested, they took over a hundred Fulcrum people into custody through this exercise. As far as the 10% or so of Roark Instruments employees who were actually worth retaining went, when they were issued their severance cheques, they were also given the paperwork to confirm that they were still employed, so this was effectively a paid vacation until Roark Instruments was rebuilt for them. These people were of course reminded not to mention this to anyone else.

* * *

In the midst of this, Chuck found the time to finish the case to bring Vincent into the Special Projects Group, and presented it to Aunt D to have it pushed through. At the time, she was considerably frazzled, as the massive surge of activity as they ramped up their operations to bring down Fulcrum and those associated with it meant that she wasn't getting any more sleep than Chuck was, and unlike him, she couldn't handle that.

"Chuck, there's simply no way that we can get a member of Fulcrum approved to join the Special Projects Group when we've just been assigned to lead the operation to mop up Fulcrum and its associates, they won't sign something like that off!"

"Aunt D, you know as well as I do that Vincent isn't like the rest of Fulcrum, and he'll be a great addition to the team, we've agreed that we want him on the team and we're going to make it happen, with or without your help!"

She looked at him balefully for about a minute, then came to a decision "Very well Chuck, I'll do my best to get this though, IF you agree to my succession plan, and get the others to agree to it as well."

"What? What are you talking about Aunt D? You've been waving the threat of me taking over from you at me for years, but it sounds like you're talking about something totally different now."

"Yes Chuck, you see I've been listening to you and Ellie and observing the way the group works now, so I've come up with this" She threw a diagram up on the screen "You'll be the overall Director of the Special Projects Group, the Cyber and Signal Intelligence Groups and any groups the others don't get, Ellie will be the Director of the primary Information Dominance Groups and some other groups, Emma will be the Director of the the primary Analysis Groups, John will be the Director of the Military Operations Groups, Mary will be the Director of the Intelligence Operations Groups and Sarah will be the Director of the Intersect Project, which is being brought under the Special Projects umbrella, and some other groups as well. When you agree, you'll all go through the formal inductions as the Deputy Directors for your roles, as well as Commander of any relevant military groups that you aren't already Commander of. There will be some adjustment of your military ranks for that. Then, when the time comes, I'll step down and you'll have the formal inductions as the Directors of the various groups, with further promotions to align you to those roles."

"Sometimes I don't like you very much Auntie Di, you have to know that this will never work, they don't want to be part of this, any more than I do."

"They'll do it for you, because they all love and respect you."

The look he sent at the screen showed how much he believed that, and she answered his unspoken comment "Yes, even John, he'd go through hell for you, and he's proven that more than once."

"You seem to be forgetting recent events that appear to refute your statement Auntie Di."

"I haven't forgotten a thing Chuck, the fact that they've forgiven you, considering the extent to which you screwed up there, just proves how much they love you, especially Sarah! For that matter, if you're EVER stupid enough to risk what you have with her like that again, I'll shoot you myself! And yes, I love you too, you know that."

He sighed "I'll try, but I really doubt that they'll go for it."

"Well that's the deal Honey, this latest business has shown me that it's high time for me to get ready to step down, and from what we've been seeing, I'm even more certain that you are the only ones who have the ability and integrity to be suitable to take over, so if it means that I have to blackmail you into stepping up, I will."

"Like I said Auntie Di, I love you, but I don't like you very much at the moment!"

"I guess I'll just have to live with that Honey, but remember, once your Mr Smith goes into the system, what you're after will be almost impossible to pull off, so don't take too long in getting the others to agree."

"Goodbye Aunt D."

"Goodbye Chuck."

* * *

Chuck swore, and printed out a few copies of the files that Aunt D had sent through, getting them off the printer and heading down to the informal kitchen where the others were.

When Ellie saw his stormy face as he came in, she stopped stirring the pot on the stove, surprised, and asked "She won't do it?" She was thinking that this wasn't like Auntie Di, as she'd always bowed to a reasonable argument, which this definitely was in her opinion.

Chuck shook his head as he held up the papers in his hand "Oh, she'll do it, IF we give in to her demands!" He shook his head "Look, why don't we talk it over after dinner, we don't want to let this spoil dinner."

She nodded hesitantly and went back to getting dinner ready, but as soon as he got to the table and Sarah had kissed him, she grabbed the papers out of his hand, passing a copy to John when he held his hand out. Ellie took in the wide eyed looks they both had as they read through what was on those pages and called out, "Just tell me, I can listen and do dinner at the same time." Chuck looked at John and he nodded reluctantly.

"Basically, she's breaking up her empire and she wants all of us to take a piece of it, Chuck gets the biggest piece and overall control, and you edge out Sarah for the next most important piece, I'm getting the operations groups, and Emma's getting the analysis groups."

"Does it look workable?"

After John looked at Sarah, who nodded thoughtfully, and Chuck, who nodded in resignation, he had another look at what was in front of him. "Yes, it does, actually, we'll all have groups under each other, and really the working dynamic won't be that different from what we have now. The four of us, your mother and Emma get multiple promotions through the various stages, and Bry, Jeff, Anna, Mei-Ling, Zondra and Carina, get promotions as well, because they're all taking on more responsibility. The General stays in the structure, ultimately she'll be under Chuck, at the same level as you and Sarah."

At that, Chuck grabbed a copy of the papers and started reading, as he hadn't actually read the proposals yet, he was just going on what Aunt D had told him. When he'd read it, he swore under his breath.

Ellie watched him as she said to John "That sounds logical, are you inclined to go along with this?"

"Ellie, don't do this on my say so!"

"John, you've known me for fifteen years, you should know by now that I won't jump into anything without looking into it properly myself, I'm asking you if you're comfortable with it, for yourself, and are inclined to agree?"

"I think…. Yes."

"OK, Sarah, what about you?"

"I think yes, too."

"Uh huh, Chuck?"

"I don't like being blackmailed, and she was quite up front about the fact that that was what this was, but as far as the structure goes I suppose what she's proposing is the logical next step, we're pretty much just going to be taking over formal command of what we've been running for years so, yes."

Ellie nodded "Alright Auntie Di, I know you're there, so you can stop hiding." When both screens lit up, she continued "Unless there are any surprises, and I'll presume from what Chuck told me there won't be, we're in, now will you process Chuck's request?"

"Oh, that's already been done and signed off, I knew that you'd agree if Chuck asked you."

"Don't be smug Auntie Di, it's not very becoming!"

"Ellie, let me have this little victory, I've been worrying about this and trying to get you and your brother to agree to what had to be done for years, but now I have the agreements and I know that the groups will be in good hands. We'll need you all to come to Washington next week for the promotion and Induction ceremonies by the way, I've sent the list of tailored uniforms that each of you needs to send over beforehand."

Ellie shook her head "You already had everything set up? You WERE confident, weren't you Auntie Di?"

"Let's just say that I had faith in you, in all of you, to do the right thing."

Chuck spoke up "You have to know that there's no way they'll sign all of this off Aunt D."

"They already have for the first stage, did you miss the fact that you're coming to Washington next week for the promotion and induction ceremonies?"

"So you're telling me that Congress has already signed off to make me a one star Navy Admiral, Ellie and Aunty Em Navy Captains, Sarah an Air Force Colonel, Casey a Marine Colonel and Uncle Bry and Mom Army Colonels, not to mention the other promotions, knowing that this is just the first stage of the plan?"

"Ellie, I think you better check his hearing, they don't all know the ultimate plan yet Chuck, but Congress has already signed off on this round of promotions and your appointments as Deputy Director for the groups, actually as Director for some of the new groups, and the key people have agreed to the full plan."

When he just sat there, staring at the screen in a daze for a while, Sarah leaned in to kiss his cheek. At that he blinked and turned to kiss her, and then he noted the worried expressions that those around the table, and Aunt D up on the screen, were wearing. "What?"

Sarah laughed softly in his ear "Chuck, you've been staring at the screen for five minutes without moving, we were beginning to think that Auntie Di broke you!"

"And that would have been embarrassing, having to advise the President and everyone else that I broke my primary successor, just as I finally got him to agree to take over!"

* * *

That got a round of relieved laughter from around the table, and they started talking about who'd be coming to the ceremonies, everyone being promoted and appointed of course had to be there, and Aunt D pointed out that Chuck needed to select an aide, who should also be present. Chuck thought for a minute and looked at Casey, asking "Do you think that Alex would be prepared to take on the role John?"

Casey nodded, saying "I think she'd be honoured to, why don't we ask her?" With that, he pulled out his phone and called her on speaker.

'Hello?'

"Alex, it's Dad."

'Well duh, Dad, I can see that!' Ellie and Sarah snickered at that.

"Where are you?"

'In our apartment.'

"Is anyone but you girls there?"

'No Dad, we've all got rid of our fuck buddies for the moment, if that's what you're asking!'

Ellie saw John about to blow and leaned forward "No, that isn't what he's asking Alex, he's got something sensitive to ask you and he was just trying to make sure that no-one but you three can hear."

Alex was contrite at that 'Oh, sorry, no, it's just us here.'

Ellie looked at John but he waved at her to ask, until she poked her finger forcefully at the phone to say 'YOU ask her!'

He stared hard at her, but he was no more capable of going against her than Chuck was of going against Sarah "What we wanted to ask, Alex, was whether you'd be interested in taking on the position of Flag Aide for Admiral Carmichael when he's appointed next week."

There was silence at the other end for a while and then she said 'What? What are you talking about Dad?'

"Just what I said, Rear Admiral lower half Carmichael is being appointed next week and he needs a Flag Aide, he asked me whether you might be interested in taking the position and I told him that you would be, never mind, I'll tell him that I was mistaken."

'NO! Stop Dad, of course I'm interested! I'd be honoured to be Chuck's Aide! I was just having trouble processing it, this is the first I've heard about him being promoted.'

Ellie looked across the table at the smirk on John's face and told him "That was cruel John! You didn't need to do that to her!"

'Dad? Were you just getting back at me for the crack I made at you? If so, Ellie's right, that was just cruel!'

It was his turn to look contrite "I'm sorry Honey, it's just, I'm your father and I don't EVER want to hear about your fuck buddies, or the other girls' for that matter, I've known them since they were little and I'm more comfortable thinking of you all as little girls, even if you are grown women now."

'It's OK Dad, for your information we don't have fuck buddies, none of us do. I was just reacting badly to the idea of you being an overbearing father, sorry. Am I really going to be Chuck's Flag Aide though?'

"No, you're going to be Admiral Carmichael's Flag Aide, any time you're filling that role you better address him properly!"

"Yes Dad"

At that point, Chuck spoke up "Welcome aboard Lieutenant McHugh."

"Chuck, you're there? I mean, thank you Admiral Carmichael, it will be an honour to serve you.'

"It's not Admiral until next week Alex, you can call me Chuck, I think your father is still yanking your chain."

"No, actually, if she's going to be your Flag Aide she has to be careful to address you properly, I was just reminding her of that!"

Chuck rolled his eyes "OK, and yes, we're all here Alex, and Aunt D, she was the one who pointed out that I needed to select a Flag Aide in the first place. You'll be coming to Washington with us for the ceremonies, and by the way, your father's being promoted to Colonel, too."

They wound the call up after that and went back to who else was going to be there.

* * *

"I presume that you'll want Lottie and Charlie there?"

"Of course!"

"What about your father?"

"No!"

"Shouldn't Ellie have a say in that Chuck?"

"I don't want him there either Auntie Di, IF he straightens himself out, that may change later, but at the moment I don't want to see the man."

Aunt D sighed "As you wish."

"What about Kim?"

"We'll ask Uncle Bry, but put her down, and Abi as well, she's family too, it wouldn't be fair to leave her out."

Aunt D quietly said "Thank you Chuck" at that.

* * *

The next week they all piled aboard a C-37 at Bob Hope International Airport and flew to Washington. Upon landing at Andrews AFB, they were met by four limousines which whisked them away to the White House, where they were escorted straight to the Oval Office.

As this was essentially just an administrative event to ratify what had already been agreed and signed off, the only people waiting for them in the Oval Office were those who were directly involved in the ceremonies, and the photographers. The President, Secretaries of Defense, Army, Navy and Air Force and the DNI were the only ones waiting in the Oval Office not in uniform, even the photographers were military.

Without the political wrangling, things went smoothly and quickly, the only delays being that all of them had to keep retiring to the side rooms to get changed between the suits they were wearing for the non military ceremonies and the uniforms for their different services between ceremonies, as their other ranks were also being adjusted to cater for the various functions that they'd be delivering.

After the ceremonies were done, they retired to the dining room for the less formal part of the proceedings. It was a fairly relaxed affair, but the acting Secretary of the Navy was looking around the room, and finally leant in to ask "Can someone tell me what these teenage girls are doing here?" The Secretary of Defense laughed "Sorry Bee Jay, we forgot that you're the only one who wasn't there at their wedding." "Who's wedding?" Bob pulled out his phone and quickly brought up a picture of the two couples at their double wedding, after looking at it, BJ handed the phone back wide eyed "OK?"

Bob turned around so he could indicate who he was talking about "You know that Lieutenant McHugh is Admiral Carmichael's new Flag Aide?" BJ nodded "Well she's also Colonel Casey's daughter, Lieutenant Mills is Colonel Mills' daughter, and Lieutenant Lancaster is General Beckman's daughter"

"But what about the younger girls?"

Bob grinned "Didn't you notice them in the wedding picture? They're Admiral Carmichael's daughters!"

"What? He can't be old enough to have teenage daughters!"

"Well, he is" Bob hesitated then "Look, has anyone explained to you just how these people fit together yet Bee Jay?"

BJ looked confused "No, what do you mean?"

Bob shook his head with a smile "OK, hold onto your hat, here we go!" He started pointing out the players "Admiral Carmichael and Captain Casey are brother and sister, Colonel Barton is their mother, General Beckman is their Godmother and Colonel Mills is their Godfather. Their father is alive, he was at the wedding, but he's out of the picture at the moment and they aren't talking about him. Their relationships with Colonel Carmichael and Colonel Casey obviously don't need to be explained, but Commander Burdon is Colonel Carmichael's mother. Nearly everyone else has a long history with the key people of the team too."

BJ was staring at him, waiting for him to laugh or tell him the punch line of the joke or something, but when this didn't happen, he realised that he was totally serious. On top of everything else, he now had White Rabbit playing in his head now, and it seemed frighteningly appropriate! What had he gotten himself into?

Military people here who he knew and trusted had assured him that the incredible collection of decorations that these people had were all legitimate and well deserved, as were the ranks these people had, even spread across the services like they were, but most of them couldn't get changed out of their uniforms fast enough, and the uniforms were now all out of sight in that massive pile of garment bags over there.

Just then he heard a quiet voice in his ear "Do you have a few minutes for a private word, Mister Secretary?"

When he looked up, it was the young Admiral. He froze at first, but nodded and stood. As they started to walk to the far side of the room, one of the man's daughters ran up, saying "Papa…." and he stopped, turning to her "Lottie, the Secretary and I are going for a quiet talk, can this wait?" She blushed when she realised that she'd interrupted something official "Oh, yes, I'm sorry Papa." She turned to the Secretary "I'm so sorry sir, that was very rude of me, please excuse me." he couldn't help but smile at her, she was such a sweet and polite child "That's quite alright dear."

He was actually impressed that the Admiral took the time to give his daughter a hug and a kiss on the head before he sent her on her way, his family was obviously important to this man, he could respect that. When they got to the other side of the room, the Admiral got straight to it. "I noted that you appear to have concerns about the unconventional nature of our group Mister Secretary, is there anything I can do or tell you to ease these concerns?"

"I'm not sure that 'concerns' is the best word Admiral, it's more 'comprehension problems', I think I've just been hit with an information overload, you've all got multiple identities across different services and more medals than I've seen in one group before, and I'm being told that it's all totally legitimate. Your mother and your wife both have the Distinguished Intelligence Cross! How is that possible?"

The Admiral looked fondly across the room "It's possible because at one time they were both the CIA's top agents, as for our other ladies, my sister has been working for the government and doing special operations and intelligence missions for fifteen years, like I have, Lieutenant Commanders Hansen, Rizzo and Chiang have all been distinguished intelligence agents with significant combat experience for well over a decade, and Lieutenant Commander Wu has been doing special operations and intelligence missions with us for over six years, our ladies aren't delicate flowers Mister Secretary, as my mother made a point of reminding me not too long ago. Colonels Casey and Mills have far more combat experience than me, and more intelligence experience as well. My mother in law has been an icon in intelligence analysis for as long as my mother has been an agent, and my Godmother was an agent that far back too. Commander Barnes has also been doing significant intelligence work in the analysis fields, with some field work, for nearly twelve years. We may be an unusual group Mister Secretary, but between us we've got over two hundred and fifty years of distinguished service across both intelligence and military fields."

The young man turned to face the Secretary again "Have I helped at all with your 'comprehension problems' Mister Secretary?" The Secretary shook his head with a smile "Yes, Admiral, I believe that I can almost understand this now, of course if we weren't sitting here with the President and the Secretary of Defense just over there talking to your lovely wife and daughters, I'd have serious trouble believing it, but we are, so thank you." He extended his hand to the young man, who shook it with a smile, before heading back to his family.

 **A/N: Sorry if this loses you Wilf, but the ranks, at this stage and the next two as the transition progresses, are logical and appropriate for the type of activities and influence that the groups have IMHO.**


	18. Ring Games

**Do I still have any readers? Awfully quiet around here.**

 **Usual disclaimers for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed, and of course, this ain't the real world.**

On the plane on the way back to L.A. the girls were curled up asleep, with their heads in Chuck and Sarah's laps, and Sarah was smiling fondly down at Charlie as she smoothed her hair. Everyone else appeared to be asleep or otherwise engaged so she and Chuck were talking quietly.

"We haven't had a chance to discuss what your mother said to me after your prank at Roark Instruments, have we?"

He looked at her askance "Do you mean the bit about more grandchildren?"

She smiled "That's the one, yeah. Do YOU want more children?"

"With you? Of course I do! I just thought, with everything going on…." He waved his hand around the airplane cabin "that it was too much pressure to bring it up."

"It doesn't happen overnight you know, and every time I look at these two I think how wonderful it would be to have more like them" She leaned in with a smile to kiss him "And it wouldn't hurt to do more practice towards having more kids, would it?"

Lottie spoke from Chuck's lap at that point "Ewww! I can't unhear that you know Mama!"

Chuck gave a quiet laugh and swatted her softly on the behind "You were supposed to be asleep young lady, it would have been polite to let us know you were awake."

Lottie sat up, trying to get some semblance of order to her hair, but with her father's curls, that was a losing battle and she gave up "I WAS asleep until you woke me up Papa!" she looked at Sarah "and just for the record Mama, we'd love to have more brothers and sisters too, I'd just rather not hear you talk about practising, or even worse, hear you practising!"

Having Lottie call her 'Mama' twice inside a minute brought tears to Sarah's eyes as she smiled and reached over to squeeze her hand.

By now they'd woken Charlie up, and she duplicated Lottie's motions as she sat up and tried to sort out her hair "What's going on?"

"Mama and Papa are talking about having more kids, and they're talking about PRACTISING to have more kids!"

Charlie looked so adorable as she scrunched up her nose and said "Ewww!" that Sarah couldn't resist hugging her and kissing her on the cheek.

"So you guys are really OK with having more brothers and sisters?"

"Yeah Mama, we'd love that, we just don't want to hear about the other!"

Sarah looked at Chuck with tears in her eyes, both of them had called her 'Mama' now!

Of course, Lottie's sharp eye didn't miss that "We DO think of you as our mother! You're not taking Mom's place, but you're our mother too!"

Sarah really started crying then and Charlie hugged her. Chuck hugged Lottie and kissed her on the head, whispering into her hair "Sometimes I really love you kiddo!" She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed "Love you Papa!"

* * *

The next morning, Sarah was sitting at the table in pretty much the same sleepwear she'd had on when she went down to the Dungeon the night that Chuck was searching for his father, with her knees drawn up to her chest as she sipped her coffee, and Chuck was at the stove in boxers and T-shirt getting breakfast ready when Ellie stumbled in, wearing much the same sleepwear as Sarah. She detoured past the stove to kiss her brother on the cheek, murmuring "Admiral", getting a response of "Captain" as she made a beeline for the coffee machine. Her first caffeine infusion restored her humanity enough to turn to her sister in law and say "Good morning Colonel" Sarah smiled and said "Good morning Captain."

Chuck groaned at the stove "That's going to get old so fast!" Just then, John walked in in his boxers and T-shirt saying "Admiral, Colonel" and Chuck turned to look at the girls, saying "See?" They had to laugh at that. John looked confused and Ellie handed him a coffee with a smile "Chuck was just saying how quickly mention of our new ranks will get irritating when you walked in and said that." He looked guilty and said "Oh, sorry", which got another laugh.

Chuck carried Sarah's plate to the table, getting a kiss from her as she put her knees and coffee down and saying "At least after the next round it will just be 'Admiral' and 'General', which will be easier" as he headed back to the stove. He'd delivered everyone else's breakfast and was finishing his own when Alex appeared at the door and asked if she was interrupting? Chuck turned to look at John, but Sarah cut him off "It was me, I thought that Alex should have access if she's supposed to be working with you all the time" he nodded and turned back to Alex "No Alex, what would you like for breakfast?" "Oh, nothing for me Sir, I'm fine!"

Chuck gritted his teeth "Alex, you're ONLY to refer to me as Sir when it's relevant to the job, the rest of the time it's Chuck, just like it's always been. Now we're not doing anything until we've had breakfast, so what do you want for breakfast?"

"Oh anything would be fine, we don't usually have breakfast because none of us can cook."

He snorted as he plated up what he'd made for himself and handed it to her, saying "Well you obviously need to get some lessons from your father and stepmother then!"

He started another breakfast for himself as she headed for the table. Ellie snorted as she got there and put her plate down "You're a little over dressed lieutenant, take your jacket off and make yourself comfortable for god's sake!" As she was doing this, her father looked over and said "What's this about you girls not knowing how to cook?" She looked back at him "It's just never been a priority Dad, there's always been more important things to focus on" "But didn't your mother teach you to cook?" It was Alex's turn to snort now "You may not know this Dad, but Mom can't really cook either!"

He went to say something at that, but Sarah shook her head, and giving Chuck a mischievous look, she said "In all seriousness Alex, the Admiral has a point, your Dad and Ellie are wonderful cooks, as is the Admiral, you should get them to teach you, all of you" She just blew Chuck a kiss as he turned to glare at her for the Admiral cracks.

* * *

When they went downstairs to their offices on Level 2, it took the rest of them over an hour to ease up on using their ranks every five minutes, and then they settled down to business.

Their priority operations at that stage were still related to cleaning up the remnants of Fulcrum, and this was requiring frequent trips to and from Washington. This was getting problematical until Chuck looked at the assets for Roark Instruments and swore at himself for not noticing this before. On his next trip to D.C. he got his father to sign all the paperwork to place RI's G550 exclusively at their disposal, and arrange for it to be hangared and maintained at Bob Hope Airport.

His father's sullen query about whether this would get him out of here any sooner prompted Chuck to respond "Yeah Dad, this will get you out of here as soon as you convince us that it's safe to let you back into the world" which, in turn, led to another argument between them, so it didn't improve the situation at all.

It took them longer to do the trips between L.A. and D.C. in the G550 than it did when they went out to Andrews and flew the F-15s, but it took them less than fifteen minutes to get to Bob Hope from Quixote House, and they could work on the trip, so all in all, it was a much more productive way to travel.

The question of how long it would be before the next stage of the handover of the Special Projects Group to them happened was still up in the air. The tentative schedule that Aunt D had showed them put it at being twelve to eighteen months before they pulled the trigger on stage two, and the same again for stage three, but they knew she was having constant talks with the key players, from the President down, on the issue and that meant the schedule could change at any time. For the moment though, she was still their boss, so when she called and said they were needed for a mission, they listened.

* * *

A few days after Chuck formalised the arrangements for the G550, Aunt D called through a case that they were needed to assist on, an agent was in deep cover with an arms dealer, Karl Stromberg, she'd risked breaking cover to report that he was holding a weapon that was apparently worth $10 million to the buyer in his vault, but she couldn't get through the security features of the vault. That meant that they needed someone else, specifically Chuck, to get in there and steal the weapon.

Aunt D advised that there was a party coming up at Stromberg's house in a few days that would give him access to the vault, and that they had to meet the agent at a club that night to set up invitations to the party. They could tell that she was aggravated about something, so Chuck came out and asked her what it was.

She paused to gather herself before saying. "The agent is Alexis White, she was sent into this operation on the basis of a short term low level infiltration mission, but once she was in there the parameters were changed by the operations area that sent her in. I didn't know anything about it other than the fact that she was working on an operation until we were requested to assist, and there's no way of extracting her now without exposing the entire operation, but she's been in there as Stromberg's girlfriend for some time now."

They were all silent for a few minutes, and then Sarah said "I hope you've dealt with the one who put her in there?" Aunt D's response was terse. "Yes, I've made sure that he's being sent to a listening station above the Arctic Circle, where he'll stay until he leaves the NSA one way or another. No-one does this to my operatives, or anyone else if I have anything to do with it!"

With that, they got the details of where they were to meet her, and sombrely wound up the call. Sarah and Chuck talked about it a little more afterwards, they hadn't been close to Alexis, they'd only done a few simple operations with her, but no-one deserved to be sent in to sleep with someone like Stromberg for months, they had to get her out of there.

At the club, they were going back to the Charles and Sarah Powers identities that they'd been using for the mission in the suburbs, because being in the game, Stromberg may have heard of their other IDs and they couldn't risk using them, and they didn't have time to come up with new identities for this. When they saw her, they noted the engagement ring on her finger and looked at each other, this was apparently worse than they'd thought. As soon as Stromberg went off to get some drinks, Sarah went in, whispering in Alexis's ear "It's Sarah and Charles Powers, I'm your best friend, and don't worry, we'll get you out of this." as she kissed her on the cheek.

Alexis only just had the time to wipe look of relief off her face and put a bubbly girlfriend look back on her face before Stromberg came back and she was introducing him to her best friend Sarah, and her new husband, Charlie. They talked for a while and then Stromberg dragged Alexis off to a romantic dinner he had planned, but not before Alexis said "Wait, you're coming to our engagement party on Saturday, right?" and they'd agreed, so she said she'd send Sarah the details and they left.

They hung out in the club for another fifteen minutes or so before they took off, just in case anyone was watching, but as soon as they were in the car, Chuck called Aunt D (because Sarah was driving). When she answered, Chuck got straight to it. "Did you know that the party we're going to is her engagement party?"

"WHAT? No, that was most definitely NOT included in the information that was given to me, I think I may have to find somewhere worse to get that bastard sent to, get her out of there Chuck!"

"That's the plan Aunt D, she said she's sending the details to Sarah."

"On that, she sent a text to her contact to say that she's going to meet you tomorrow, you didn't talk about that?"

"No, there wasn't a chance. She must be planning on coming to Quixote House, as that's the only place she knows for us here, OK, we'll keep an eye out for her."

Chuck looked at Sarah and she nodded to show she'd heard.

* * *

The next day, they were dressed for business in the PS&T office, watching the cameras outside. When Alexis turned up in a cab and hesitated outside the door, Sarah went out and threw her arms around her, leading her inside.

She took Alexis into her office, called out to Chuck and called the others in before turning waving Alexis over to the table in the front of the office.

Chuck came through the adjoining door to his office, and Casey, Carina, Zondra and Mike came in the front door. When they were seated, Chuck opened by saying that she knew everyone but Zondra and Mike, adding that they'd joined the team after their last operation together and that they wanted to have everyone here to plan out what had to happen rather than waste time trying to catch them up later, Alexis just nodded at that.

When they were ready, Alexis started "Chuck.." but Chuck cut her off "No Alexis, it's Charlie, we need to stick with the name we told Stromberg until we're done with this." "OK, Charlie, I'm sorry you got dragged into this, I really don't know how you're supposed to get through the security, Karl keeps saying that no-one can get through what he has in that vault, but I could never get the details of what that was. I tried to tell my handler that, but I don't know whether he passed that on?"

Chuck and Sarah looked at each other. "No, he didn't, but that was just one of the things that he kept quiet about, like the nature of the way you were inserted into the operation. What else can you tell us?"

Alexis went over what she'd been able to discover, which was quite a bit. She had the make and model of the vault, the IP addresses for the Internet connections, the layout and entry points for the house, the number of guards and their usual schedules, she'd done a good job on that. At the end she asked what had happened with her handler, as she hadn't been able to contact him in days?

Chuck glanced at her and said he'd been sent away, but he looked angry. When she saw Alexis's confused expression, Sarah explained. "The way you were sent in and what you were sent in to do wasn't disclosed until you asked for assistance, and even then he withheld the nature of the party that was to be used to get us in and what you just told us about the vault. Anyway, he's been assigned to a listening post above the Arctic Circle for the rest of his career, or life."

She could see the concerned looks Alexis was still sending Chuck's way and shook her head. "It's not you Chuck's angry at Alexis, it's that bastard who sent you in there like that, we all are, especially the General."

Chuck decided that this wasn't helping so he brought the discussion back to the mission at hand. He explained that none of the information that she'd just given them had been passed on and they needed to re-scope everything if they were going to have a hope of succeeding.

As he talked, he grabbed the keyboard on the table and ran a search on the vault specs, now that they knew what it was that they had to deal with, and going by what he saw, Stromberg was justified in his confidence in the Vault's impregnability, the options that were available for it were daunting. He started compiling a list of what he thought they'd need to handle the vault security, but as he was doing that, he asked Alexis "Did you see this weapon, and do you have any idea about what makes it worth ten million? Could it be a suitcase nuke?"

"No, I saw the case, but didn't see inside it, and Karl hasn't talked about it, but I don't think it's big enough to be a suitcase nuke, it's only a normal size metal briefcase."

Chuck nodded at that, they would take radiation meters to be sure, but if it wasn't nuclear they'd have a better chance at slipping it out unseen. The next item on the agenda was the team, with the number of guards that Alexis had told them Stromberg had, they were going to need more than just her to keep them occupied, so it was agreed that Casey would be going as her older half brother with Carina as his girlfriend, and Zondra was coming along as another girlfriend of her's with Mike as her boyfriend.

With the primary mission agreed, they looked at the other angles of this, because it had to be done, Chuck asked Alexis the big question. "Is there any reason for you to draw out this operation any further? We need to determine whether we're going to go after everything else in there at the same time to finish your mission so you can come home."

She bit at that "Why would you ask that? Do you think that I like sleeping with that bastard?"

Carina grabbed her arm and whispered "He's trying to get you out of there, help him!", Alexis nodded at that "I'm sorry, it's just, this has been a horrible assignment, no I can't see any value in extending the operation past this."

This time it was Chuck who gently gripped her arm and said "You have nothing to apologise for Alexis, I can't imagine how it is for you in there, but we just have to know what else we need to get, and where it is." She nodded again, showing them where Stromberg's office was and telling them about the files she was sent to get.

Then she had to get back, so she left, arranging to send the details to Sarah, her 'brother', who Sarah had supposedly just told her was back in the country, and Zondra, and they'd next meet at the party. She did take back a few of Chuck's remote access devices to connect into the security and computer networks to give them the gateways they needed into the systems there.

Providing that the remote access devices worked as they normally did, they'd give them a way to get control of the cameras, and hopefully the security system, and if they could get into the computers ahead of time they could begin extracting the information they needed to finish Alexis's original mission, that way when they left, they could take her with them.

Chuck's shopping list to get prepared was relatively short, but difficult, he needed some imaging glasses that would enable him to see the lasers that were probably operating inside the vault, he needed a devices to check for radiation and electrical or mechanical activity, and he needed a way to try and take over the control systems for the vault.

* * *

Most importantly, he had to make use of an extension that he, Ellie and Leslie had put together for the updated and improved Intersect that they were developing from Fulcrum's Intersect files.

Between them, they'd remapped the interfaces between the Intersect and the body's control systems so that they engaged at a much lower level, without having to be filtered through the brain's logic processes, so the actions were much quicker, stronger and faster, as well as being more efficient and natural.

Now that they'd improved the usability of the physical skills coded into the Intersect, though, they'd highlighted the fact that what was in there was quite limited. They'd found the systems Fulcrum had used to convert the data from match moving systems into the requisite Intersect nerve impulses, and they'd bypassed the existing Match Moving processes altogether, adding the Match Moving software into the Intersect itself. With extensive input from Ellie and Leslie, Chuck had recoded the systems so that the Match Moving Module in the Intersect would generate the set of Intersect nerve impulses from watching the necessary movements being made (either in real time or from memories), and had loaded the new module.

He'd done limited testing, but he hadn't had a chance to generate a larger routine with the module yet, and he'd need to be able to do that if he was to get though the lasers that he expected to find in the vault. Over the next couple of days, he watched gymnasts, acrobats, clowns, martial artists, dancers, contortionists, break dancers, anything which could possibly assist with the movements that he may need to make.

Another benefit of the changes they'd made to the movement interfaces was that the most appropriate action was loaded according to what his brain was registering, so he would see something coming and his brain would retrieve what fitted that from the database in his head, which should be just what he needed for this.

Chuck had the entire tech team, Jeff, Anna, Pete, Lucas, Simon and Steve (and him as well when he had the time), getting into the security and computer systems at Stromberg's as soon as Alexis had attached the remote access devices to the networks. When she went back, Anna and Mei-Ling had followed her in two of the pool cars, leaving one of them set up to work as a relay within range of the devices' WiFi to relay the signal back to the Dungeon. The only problem with that was the fact that they had to change the cars every day or two to avoid attracting too much attention.

This let them confirm ahead of time that Anna or the others could control the cameras and most of the security system effectively from the control vans (though not, unfortunately, the vault, as that was on a separate system), and they copied everything they could find on the computers and devices on the network, they also monitored any communications and additions or amendments to the computer content, so they soon had most of what they needed to complete Alexis's original mission.

* * *

On Saturday night, Jeff and Anna were in the control van with Bry, Sydney, Mei-Ling and Vinnie as the backup team, in case the guys inside needed assistance, and Sarah and Chuck went to the party in the Aston Martin (as Sarah's RSR was too distinctive), while Casey, Carina, Zondra and Mike went in the Town Car.

As soon as they walked in, Alexis launched herself at Casey, hitting him as she complained "If I didn't see Sarah, I wouldn't have even known you were back in the country! Would you care to explain why other people knew where my brother was, when I didn't?" Casey pleaded.

"Hey, take it up with Carina, she's been dragging me around Europe to all those stupid shows for weeks, then she suddenly got tired of it and decided to come home. She called Sarah for lunch as soon as we got back, that's how Sarah knew!"

Alexis came back with "If Carina could call her friends, what was stopping you calling your sister to let me know you were back John? You have a phone too, don't you?"

Chuck, Sarah, Casey, Carina, Zondra and Mike mingled with the other guests, but Chuck and Sarah had to keep a low profile in case anyone recognised them, as they were well known. Before Stromberg's speech, Alexis slipped Sarah his key cards for the office and the vault, and they quietly went the other way while everyone else was headed to the foyer to listen to Karl. As Karl began his speech, Jeff started playing looped segments of security video while Anna talked them past the guards' locations as they headed for the vault.

When they got the vault door open, Chuck put the imaging glasses on and his "Shit!" told Sarah that this had just gotten harder, he handed her the glasses without a word as he searched, without luck, for a viable way to disable the security controls inside the vault. Sarah took one look and handed the glasses back to Chuck, looking grim, ROVING lasers for fuck's sake? Fixed lasers weren't difficult enough? She asked if he could get through them, trying to control the panic that his less than reassuring response of "let's hope so" invoked as he took off his jacket and handed it to her. He observed the roving lasers' movements for a few minutes to ascertain their patterns, then kissed her for luck and began to move.

She couldn't take her eyes off him as he moved through the lasers, leaping, twisting, spinning, even dropping to the floor and sliding under the beam, she'd never seen anyone move like that and it was so hot! When he managed to get through all the beams without triggering anything, he grinned at her as they shared a sigh of relief.

Chuck tested the case for radiation, but it looked like Alexis was right, it didn't appear to be nuclear. The next tests he ran were for any live circuits or signs that might indicate alarms, or a bomb trigger, and when they came up clear too he pulled out his lock picks and got to work on the case's locks. When he got it open, the device inside didn't look like a weapon, in fact the flat ovoid looked more like a George Foreman Grille than anything else, but he ran all the scans over it again, and it came up clean too.

Once he was convinced that the device wasn't dangerous, he removed it from the case and went through the rest of the case very carefully to ensure that nothing else was in there, locking the case and leaving it in exactly as he'd found it when he was confident that he had everything he'd come for. He knelt down, and when all the beams were well clear of the floor, slid the device across to the vault's doorway where Sarah was waiting to collect it, and she got it out of the way.

As the patterns were changing, and they were different from the other side as well, he took another couple of minutes to get the movement patterns of the beams again before he worked his way back out to the door. He took off his shirt so that Sarah could tape the device to his stomach before he put his shirt and jacket back on. Checking with Carina, she told them they had five minutes yet (because Casey had taken over giving the speech when Stromberg's finished too soon), so they ducked into Stromberg's office to search for any other papers that may have relevant information, and any external drives or computers that weren't on the network. They snapped pictures of a few documents and copied the thumb drives they found in the safe and the drawers, putting everything back the way it was and getting back to the party before the speeches had finished.

When the speeches finished Sarah slipped the key cards back to Alexis as she told her that Chuck had been called into work urgently because some critical systems had crashed. Then, with a kiss and one last "congratulations", she ran back to Chuck and they took off, though they only went as far as the control van.

As they listened over the mics, Alexis's performance was masterful as she played Stromberg, recounting the story that Casey had briefed her on earlier. She whined about how her brother had just told her that his girlfriend was demanding that they head back to Europe again tomorrow, because one of her friends who was still over there had called her to tell her about an exclusive show she'd heard about that was being put on in Milan in a couple of days, so she wouldn't have a chance to catch up with him before he left.

Stromberg told her that she should go and catch up with her brother tonight then, and he'd see her in the morning (he actually sounded quite smitten with her), so she'd kissed him (slipping the key cards back into his pocket while he was distracted) and thanked him profusely before she ran upstairs to grab her overnight bag (along with everything of her's she wanted and the evidence she'd collected). She kissed him again and told him she'd see him in the morning before she left with Casey, Carina, Zondra and Mike.

As soon as the Town Car passed the van, the van took off after them, with Sarah and Chuck following in the Aston Martin. Stromberg shouldn't realise that anything was wrong for ages, but they didn't want to take any chances.

Back at Quixote House, they locked the "weapon" away in a safe in the Dungeon, because they'd been told it related to another case that they were being brought into in the near future. After they'd given the mission report to their superiors, Ellie gave Alexis a sedative and they settled her into the Dungeon's Apartment, because they were flying her back to D.C. in RI's G550 the following morning.

* * *

After they got Alexis settled down in the Apartment, the team went back to the conference room and talked about some of the developments that had come out of the debriefing with Aunt D and the one running the operation Alexis was on. The key topics of conversation were, of course, this 'Ring' organisation that they were only now hearing about, the CIA 'Ring Expert' that they were being saddled with to pursue it, and why elements of the NSA were running operations which were for all intents and purposes off the books to acquire the things the CIA's 'Ring Expert' identified and said were necessary.

Vinnie could give them some information about the Ring, as he'd worked with them when he was chasing Orion around the world, Fulcrum had apparently been merely the North American affiliate for them, so when he was overseas he'd used the Ring's other resources. Unfortunately, he didn't have much more detail than that, they'd seemed more professional than Fulcrum, but that wasn't hard when the one running Fulcrum had been a clown like Ted Roark. He did know that they were primarily based in Europe, though, which raised other questions about why the CIA's expert on them would be in the United States.

Chuck and the rest of the tech team combed all the agency records for this Daniel Shaw, and there were suspicious holes all through his records, in fact they read much like Bryce Larkin's had, which in turn set off alarm bells for anyone who'd had to deal with Larkin.

There wasn't much in the Intersect about Shaw either, he'd just appeared out of nowhere with no service history behind him, and that made them all wonder.

At least it was much easier and effective to search the Intersect now, because along with the new physical interfaces, Chuck, Ellie and Leslie had reworked the Intersect's core information systems, moving their interfaces lower down as well so that they were working more on the unconscious level and were less limited. This meant that information retrieval was much quicker, extensive searches could be conducted much faster and with much less effort (Chuck tweaking the search and image/voice recognition software in the Intersect had helped with that as well), and the effect of getting a flash of information was now no more that a feeling of recognition, he could tell that it was the Intersect, but it didn't hit him like it used to.

Another big advantage of moving these interfaces to the unconscious areas of the brain, was that it removed the filters that had been imposed by the brain's logic processes, so all of the input was processed, and things that may have been missed before because they were filtered out were now included. (This was also why the Motion Matching process worked, actually, the unconscious took everything in and processed it into the necessary nerve impulses/actions, whereas the conscious mind would have had to focus on a finite number of items.)

Of course, the fact that he no longer had to suffer those horrendous headaches, or the other Intersect glitches, once the earlier versions had all been overwritten with what they had reworked was a major benefit too.

Chuck had added a safeguard to their version, this was code which prevented it being overwritten by other Intersects. This meant that a deactivation signal had to be sent for the Intersect before any updates could be loaded, and another signal sent afterwards to reactivate it. The effect of this was to protect him from other rogue Intersect uploads if he was hit with another one.

Even with all of these resources, though, they didn't find any really useful information about Shaw, which was a worry. They decided to restrict the team that he saw to those the CIA was likely to already know about, Sarah, Chuck, Casey and Carina, there was no reason for him to know about Zondra, Mei-Ling, Bry, Mike, Rick, Sydney, Alex, Vicky, Vinnie, Jeff, Pete, Simon, Steve, Lucas, Anna, Ellie or Emma, and they'd prefer to keep it that way.

In the morning, they put Alexis on the RI G550 for her ride back to D.C. to give her reports on the operation while they were analysing the intel that she'd brought back with her. Aunt D made sure that all the arrangements were in place to ensure that Alexis would be under her control and protection from the time she arrived in D.C.

What they'd brought in was deemed enough to take Stromberg down, so an NSA task force took him and everyone at his place that day, which also meant that the team could recover the car that they'd left out there to relay communications as they continued to monitor Stromberg.

* * *

When Casey escorted Shaw into the CCE Bunker, they could tell he was going to be trouble, because he strutted in as if he owned the place. He obviously believed that he was much more important that anyone else because he was a 'CIA Special Agent', and that everyone should defer to him. They just looked at each other, this was going to be interesting.

Shaw ignored everyone else and zeroed in on Sarah the moment he walked in, he was going to put these losers in their place straight away to ensure that they knew who was in charge, but Walker was something he'd wanted for a long time. Casey was a burn out, just marking time to his retirement, Miller was known to be a demon in bed but nothing else of note, and Bartowski was just some geek who was supposed to be an analyst, but Walker was stunning, and he'd heard enough stories about what she'd do with the proper motivation, so he'd play nice with her, until he got what he wanted from her anyway. "Hello Sarah, I've heard so many good things about you, it's going to be a pleasure to be working with you."

She looked at him as if he was something she'd stepped in. "The pleasure's all your's Shaw." That set off his triggers, because he couldn't handle not being treated without the deference he believed he was due, so he drew himself up to his full height and puffed out his chest. "That's Special Agent Shaw, Agent Walker, you need to learn to show proper respect to your superiors!"

Sarah smiled grimly as she responded. "Oh I know how to do that Shaw, but you obviously don't, have the CIA forgotten the required protocols on reporting to the Special Agent in Charge when you enter a Station nowadays?"

Shaw frowned at her. "What Station?" To get this sleaze away from Sarah, Casey responded, to make him turn and look at him. "This Station, Shaw, NSA Glendale Station."

At that Shaw realised that two things, first that he didn't really know what was going on here, and second that he needed to get this back on track. "I wasn't informed of that, so you've gotten yourself a promotion Casey?" Casey's expression matched Sarah's "Yes I did Shaw, but I'm not the SAC, it appears that Special Agent Walker was correct about the CIA's forgetting the protocols, and their manners."

Shaw drew himself up again. "I don't have time to play who's who with you people, the fact is that you've been assigned to assist me on my operation, so all that matters is that I'm in charge and that you'll all do what I tell you, or else!"

At that point Chuck burst out laughing. "Shit Sarah, are all CIA Agents like this?" Sarah smiled at him "Pretty much, yeah."

Shaw rounded on him "I won't take any disrespect from some geek who's barely an analyst Bartowski, one more word out of you and I'll have you fired!"

Chuck had already been on edge from the way Shaw went after Sarah, so that was the final straw to make Chuck assert his authority, he stood up and moved towards Shaw with grim expression which made Shaw back up a couple of steps as he got closer. Chuck stayed within a two step distance as he spoke calmly to him. "That's Special Agent in Charge Carmichael to you, Shaw, this is my station, my team, and MY operation, and anything that is run out this station and my team is run by me, do you understand?"

Shaw started stammering that this was an CIA operation and he'd be running it, and Chuck looked at Sarah.

In less than twenty seconds the big screen lit up with the image of Major General Diane Beckman. The flash of amusement that crossed over her face when she took in the tableau on screen would have been missed by anyone who didn't know her, and she'd schooled her expression before she spoke "Yes Special Agent Carmichael?"

Chuck held Shaw's gaze as he spoke, "General, were the CIA advised of the conditions that apply when they request the assistance from my team? Also, do the CIA still operate under the same protocols as the rest of the intelligence community in regards to reporting to another agency's station?"

"Yes, Agent Carmichael, I informed the CIA Director who requested our assistance of the requirements for any operations with your team, and in my experience, the CIA has complied with the required protocols when reporting to NSA stations, why, what has happened here? The situation appears tense?"

With the Chuck turned to the screen "Agent Shaw here has disrespected every member of my team that he's deigned to talk to since he arrived General. Upon entering he ignored everyone else and immediately tried to make advances to Special Agent Walker. When she rebuffed his advances he tried to intimidate her into showing him respect as her superior, so she reminded him that protocol required that he report to the Special Agent in Charge of the Station."

"When Special Agent Casey informed him of what station he was in, because he apparently didn't know where he was, he disrespected him, even though he obviously presumed that Special Agent Casey was the Special Agent in Charge, and went on to inform him that as we were assigned to assist him, we all worked for him and he would give the orders. I must admit that I laughed out loud at that because it was so ridiculous, and he informed me, what was it? Oh yes, that I was a geek who was barely an analyst and if I said one more word he'd have me fired."

"If this is an indication of the nature of how engagements with the CIA will go General, I cannot allow my team to assist the CIA on any of their operations, it's too disruptive and we have too many important projects on our books to waste time on things like this."

Shaw only managed to get out "Who do.." before the General cut him off. "Shaw, I strongly advise you shut your mouth before I give Special Agents Walker, Casey and Miller leave to do what they desperately want to do." That made Shaw look around to see that they all had pistols in their hands, and murder in their eyes, when he saw that he deflated and stepped back.

The General went on "Special Agent Carmichael, can we get the CIA Director on the line and try to see if we can manage to sort this out without bloodshed?" Chuck reluctantly agreed, but stressed that the CIA would have to take serious steps to fix this if they wanted to avoid trouble. The General nodded and brought the CIA Director on-line.

As soon as he came on line, she jumped in "Director Preston, what instructions were given to Agent Shaw about the operation with the Intersect team?" He looked from her image, to the image from the bunker.

"As you advised me General, I informed Agent Shaw that he was to report to the Special Agent in Change of the Glendale Station, and that the SAC would be in charge of the operation."

"Are you aware of any medical, mental health or illicit drug related issues with this agent Director?"

"No I am not, why would you ask that General?"

"Because your agent, upon entering our station, ignored everyone else as he immediately tried to make advances to one member of the team, disrespected her and another two members of the team, informed them that they all worked for him because it was his operation, and told the SAC that he'd have him fired if he spoke back to him."

The Director froze at that "Is this true Shaw?"

Shaw only got out "No Sir" before Chuck said, "Let's play the recording, shall we?", which made him change his tack "Well, some parts might have been taken that way, perhaps, but the interpretation was out of context". Chuck swore under his breath and said "Director, if I may?" and nodded to Carina who'd queued it up.

At the end of the recording the Director looked furious, because Shaw had managed to make both him and the CIA look like idiots by association. "What part of what the General said did you think was out of context Shaw? Because from what I just saw and heard, she went easy on you." This time Shaw remained silent.

The General took up the discussion again. "Director, obviously, the team would obviously have difficulty working with Agent Shaw given the way he chose to enter, is there anyone else that can be assigned to the team for this operation?"

"I'm afraid not General, Shaw is the only Ring specialist that the CIA has, he was reporting DCIA Graham before he died, but the Acting DCIA assigned him to me, as the Director of the National Clandestine Service. I'm beginning to understand why."

Then he turned to address Shaw. "Shaw, are you capable of behaving like a professional, to provide the team you've been assigned to work with the Ring information it needs to complete this operation? WITHOUT doing anything else as stupid as what you've done up to now?"

Shaw gritted his teeth "Yes Sir."

The Director turned his attention back to the others. "General, Special Agent Carmichael, are you prepared to proceed on this basis?" Chuck looked at the others, and when they reluctantly nodded, he agreed to see whether it could be workable, but stipulated that Shaw would have to work out of the CIA's L.A. point of presence most of the time as he wasn't prepared to subject his team to him any more than absolutely necessary.

When the CIA Director tried to say that the CIA didn't have stations within the United States, Chuck snapped back at him "I'm well aware that you don't have OFFICIAL stations in the United States Director, but I'm also aware that you DO have UNOFFICIAL stations, like the one you have in Los Feliz, and Agent Shaw will be working out of there unless he is required to work directly with my team for a specific operation, have I made myself clear enough, or do you need further explanation?"

The Director bristled a little at being spoken to like that, but he knew that he had to mend a lot of ridges because of Shaw's stupidity, so he told him that he'd made himself clear and agreed to his requirements, and with that they cancelled the link.

* * *

They headed into the conference room to get some of the basic information together to get a start on the operation, but as Chuck entered the room, he saw Shaw making a beeline for the chair next to Sarah. "SHAW! What do you think you're doing?"

Shaw had somehow deluded himself into thinking that he could pull the wool over their eyes and casually waved to the seat he was heading for, saying "I don't know what you mean Agent Carmichael, I was just going to sit down so we can get started."

Chuck only just managed to keep a civil tone as he said "Special Agent Walker has made it quite clear that she doesn't wish to be anywhere near you, so you WILL respect her wishes and stay away from her, do you understand?"

Shaw bristled and started to respond but stopped when he heard rounds being chambered, when he looked around he saw pistols in Sarah, Carina and Casey's hands. Chuck pointed to the far end of the table and said "You sit there!" When Shaw didn't move the tone of his voice changed as he barked "Now!"

When Shaw had seated himself where he was told and Chuck sat down between him and Sarah (in the very seat Shaw had been intending to take, actually), Chuck told him to fill them in on what he knew about the Ring. Shaw's response that the background wasn't relevant, they just needed to get the intel that he was after so he could proceed, didn't go down at all well with Chuck.

He grabbed the keyboard on the table and about twenty seconds later the screen lit up with the image of Director Preston. When the Director saw who was on screen, he wasn't happy, not about the fact he was seeing them only minutes after they'd finished that last session, or the fact that Chuck had managed to force a link to his secure computer. "What can I do for you Special Agent Carmichael?"

"Director, I'm sorry but this operation will have to be cancelled, Agent Shaw has refused to provide us with information about the Ring that we'll need to conduct the operation."

The Director glared at Shaw "Is this true Shaw?"

Shaw only got out "No sir.." before Chuck started the replay of the discussions in the room.

When it was done, the Director looked at Shaw and asked "Are you retarded Shaw? Just in the last fifteen minutes, you've twice claimed that you haven't said something when anyone up to even the level of a village idiot would know that the proof that you're lying was going to be ready to be played."

"Special Agent Carmichael, if you would give me ten minutes to clear my schedule, it appears that I will have to sit in on this to make the Village Idiot deliver what's required."

Chuck got as far as "I'm sorry about this Director" when the Director cut him off "No, it's the CIA that needs to apologise to you, all of you, for forcing THIS on you, and I can assure you that that apology will be coming your way ASAP, but unfortunately we're seeing enough intel to be certain that this Ring IS something to be worried about, and this idiot is supposedly the one who knows the most about it, so if you'll just give me ten minutes, I'll clear my schedule so I can try to help get what you need. Shaw, get your facts in order!"

True to his word, it only took him ten minutes to line up people to cover things for him because he had to assist with an inter agency issue that one of their agents had created. When he came back to them he said "So Shaw, Special Agent Carmichael has asked you to fill the team in on everything you know about the Ring. Well, we're listening! SHAW!"

Shaw had spent that time stewing over the way the Director had been openly treating him like an idiot and siding with the NSA, he used to report to the DCIA, but now he'd been relegated to the Director of the National Clandestine Service, and the bastard wasn't giving him the respect he deserved! He had to get this back on track and put all of them in their place, and when this was done, Walker's place was going to be on her knees doing everything he wanted to atone for the disrespect she showed. It appeared that she might be involved with Bartowski in some way though, so he'd need to get him out of the way to get a clear shot at her.

He was so tied up in these plans he didn't hear when the Director spoke to him, so the Director had to shout his name a second time to get his attention. He muttered something about "Sorry sir, just putting all the information together" and then started talking about the Ring, still thinking about his plans.

An hour or so later, they had everything Shaw knew about the Ring, and that was rather unimpressive, Shaw had supposedly managed to insert an agent into the Ring in Paris in 2003, but they were killed in 2005, and in the four years since then, the intel he'd been getting was of rather less value, as he'd just been chasing his tail around Europe and recording any mention of the Ring.

Recently, he'd heard that his agent's lock box with all the intel that they'd accumulated on the Ring was being sold at auction, and that the ones selling it had paid an arms dealer, Karl Stromberg, ten million to transport it to the United States for the auction. He'd come back to the States to get it off Stromberg, but apparently some NSA team had managed to get it off him, so they'd have to get it from the NSA.

Chuck looked at the screen at that point and the Director nodded to show that he'd got the message, and he, at least, knew who had that lock box.

Of course Shaw missed that exchange as he'd just had a great idea to deal with his problems. Bartowski was no match for Panzer, hell, he didn't know anyone who was, which was why he was still trying to find a way to get that key off him, so this was perfect!

With that, Shaw went on to say that the digital key that was needed to open the lock box was in Paris, so someone from the team needed to go there and retrieve it. At that he looked at Chuck and said "I hear that you'd love to see Paris, Chuck, this should be an easy trip for you, duck over on the Red Eye tonight, see the sights, pick up the key and come back."

Chuck knew that he was trying something, but he wasn't in the mood to play games with Shaw, so he just said that he couldn't spare anyone from his team for a sightseeing trip, so he would have to go himself. Shaw came back with "Oh, I'm afraid I can't go myself, I'm too well known in Paris, I'd be made as soon as I landed."

Chuck had had it "Oh for fuck's sake, Director, do you have any agents in Paris at the moment?"

"Indeed we do Agent Carmichael, Shaw, what's the location for this key, I'll get someone to pick it up straight away."

Shaw was trapped now "Well, the key may not actually be in Paris yet, word is that the Ring is transporting it to Paris now."

They all just stared at him and the Director asked "When, exactly, is this key being transported to Paris?"

"A First Class passenger on the Red Eye flight tonight supposedly has it."

"And were you planning on telling Special Agent Carmichael before he got on the plane that the operation had changed and he'd need to engage an enemy agent on the plane?"

"I thought it would be better to avoid making him nervous by telling him ahead of time, as I was given to understand that he doesn't have much field experience. It should be a simple job, just knock out the courier and take the key."

"Well if it's that simple, then you can do it, the E-tickets will be waiting for you when you get to the airport!"

"I, I may need support sir, in case the Ring has more than one person on the plane, it would make more sense if Agent Walker and I travelled as a couple, so we can handle anything that comes up between us."

Chuck restrained Sarah before she could launch herself out of the seat, and while she was still being held by Chuck she addressed the Director "As Special Agent Carmichael and I have both informed Mr Shaw more than once, Director, I am not prepared to work directly with him in any capacity, and I do not believe that Special Agent Miller is, either."

Carina cut in at that point "Special Agent Walker is correct on that, sir, but I am prepared to go as backup for the mission. I won't use Shaw's plan though, I will not have any contact with him in any way, shape or form at the airport or on the plane, I will observe anonymously. If he manages to succeed, I'll just go along for the ride, but if he fails, as I expect, I'll take over the mission to get the key."

The Director looked at her. "Are you sure about this Agent, sorry, Special Agent Miller? You won't have any support up there, the risk factor will be high."

Carina nodded. "Yes, sir, if this intel is as important as Shaw says I'll make sure we get the key, but I won't promise not to shoot him if it isn't worth the effort."

He smiled grimly as he nodded at that. He looked around the room. "If that's all, Shaw, get moving! Special Agent Miller, good luck, and thank you."

Casey escorted Shaw out, and they went back into the Dungeon. Mei-Ling's first words when they walked in were "You're not going into that by yourself, I'm coming with you!" and Vinnie added "And so am I."

As it made sense to have backups that no-one else knew about and there was little time, no-one wasted time arguing, they just booked three separate tickets for them on the flight while they packed their bags.

 **A/N: There's a valid reason for Lottie and Charlie to be talking like Valley Girls, because they are! Glendale is, like, totally Valley! ;)**


	19. Ring Games 2

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, this ain't the real world, and I was woken up at the crack of dawn by a cacophony of apparently random and unnecessary metal on metal beating from a nearby building site and am out of sorts, so perhaps this chapter should come with a 'more edge and grit' warning.**

From their experience with him so far, no-one was surprised to find that Shaw was unable to understand, or too stupid and arrogant to listen to 'I will not have any contact with him in any way, shape or form at the airport or on the plane' and went straight up to Carina at the airport. She didn't have to feign her irritation with the man, and people actually cheered when she slapped him hard enough to loosen his teeth. This helped when she asked to be moved away from him in First Class when he approached her again on the plane, because the cabin staff bent over backwards to move HIM away from the nice seat she had, and when he argued, he was given the choice of moving, or being thrown off the plane altogether.

Mei-Ling was also in First Class, in a position where she could easily observe everyone, but Vinnie was back in Business Class, in case the Ring courier was someone he'd worked with when he was hunting for Orion and recognised him. The three of them were in constant communication, using the gear that Chuck and his 'Special Technology' group (him and Leslie at the moment) came up with, and Mei-Ling used the Camera/Augmented Reality glasses that they were all wearing to scan all the First Class passengers, to see whether Vinnie recognised anyone.

Vinnie wasn't the only one who swore when he DID recognise the Ring courier, because Hugo Panzer was built like Mike, and was only a few inches shorter. Vinnie tersely told them enough to make it clear that the muscle wasn't just for show, and he was a dangerous man. Chuck was quite good enough to take him without trouble, but Shaw didn't know that, so he'd obviously been trying to set him up to be killed. They had a few things to say about what they planned to do to Shaw afterwards.

When Shaw made his move, at first it looked like it had worked, but Panzer was wearing some sort of device that shocked him awake when his heart rate dropped below a threshold, and he went after Shaw. None of them were too upset when Panzer came back from the baggage hold without Shaw, but that did mean that Carina would have to get the key now. While Carina Miller was gone, Carina still had all her skills, and she was quite capable of enticing just about any man (except Chuck apparently), so she had little trouble convincing Panzer to renew his Mile High Club membership with her. Panzer's size made it easy for her to manoeuvre him into suggesting the baggage hold, rather than the toilets, for the act.

Vinnie had slipped down there ahead of them, but he was distracted by checking to see if Carina was OK when Panzer hit her, hard, and that gave Panzer a chance to grab the metal brace he'd used on Shaw and hit him with it. Panzer was advancing on Vinnie to finish him off while he was dazed by the blow when Carina attacked. Like Mike, Panzer was quicker than he should be at his size and he had quite a bit of reach on Carina so it was a tough fight, but eventually tactics, and the ceramic knife she'd managed to get on board, won out and she killed him.

They recovered the key from his body, but when Vinnie went to hide the body, he started swearing, because Panzer hadn't killed Shaw, he'd just tied him up. Carina looked at where Vinnie had found Shaw, turning the knife over in her hand as she considered what to do with him, but eventually shook her head, sheathing the knife and handing it to Vinnie to spare her the temptation to finish the bastard off. They left him there, tied up, deciding that they could work out what to do with him later.

Unfortunately, Carina wasn't the only one with hidden backup on the plane though. One of the flight attendants was a Ring assassin who specialised in poisons, and when she saw Carina return without Panzer, she poisoned her drink, taking the key off her when she was incapacitated. Mei-Ling and Vinnie saw this through the AR glasses, and Mei-Ling went to try to help Carina while Vinnie grabbed the 'flight attendant' and took her down to the baggage hold to get the antidote for the poison from her.

Carina was slipping fast, so Mei-Ling used the satellite phone to call home to ask for help. For the first time, Chuck was actually glad to have Fulcrum's drug and poisons database in his head, he got Mei-Ling to quickly describe all the symptoms she could see, or Carina could tell her, and came up with the most likely poison, further searches of the database identified materials on the plane that could be used to give Carina more time and Mei-Ling grabbed them and to make a concoction that definitely slowed her decline. This gave Vinnie the time he needed to break the Ring assassin (she was tougher than she looked) and get the antidote for Carina. When she finally gave it up, he acquiesced to her pleas and put her out of her misery with Carina's knife.

The antidote worked immediately to stabilise Carina and stop the decline, and as she improved, they discussed what to do about the bodies and Shaw in the baggage hold. They were getting closer to landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport, but weren't having much luck coming up with any ideas until Mei-Ling asked who had the knife now? Vinnie said that he did, so she went to get it from him before slipping down into the baggage hold, where she disabled the call button for the lift, then put Shaw in a choke hold which should put him out for an hour or more. When he was out, she cut him free, carefully wiped off the knife and sheath and made sure that his prints were on both of them before tucking the sheath away in the back of the waistband of his trousers.

When they landed at Charles de Gaulle, Zondra met them and took them straight to a room on the airside where a medical team was waiting for Carina. When the doctors had checked her over, they were told that she'd been fine, with no residual effects from the poison once she'd recovered. Zondra was interrupted by the radio while she was hugging Carina, and she smiled at what she heard, asking "What did you do?" Carina and Vinnie nodded at Mei-Ling and she smiled shyly "I just did what I could to ensure he couldn't leave the baggage hold and make it look like a minor switch failure was the reason for that, then I made sure that his prints were the main ones on the knife that was used to kill Panzer and the Ring Assassin, and its sheath, and put the sheath on him in a place where it would be expected for someone who used knives."

Zondra smiled again "Well they found him in the hold with the bodies and he's been taken in for questioning, quite vigorous questioning, which would make it high time we got out of here, we brought the RI jet over to take you home." With that, they all headed for the jet to get out of there as quickly as they could.

* * *

Back in Charles de Gaulle Airport, the Air Transport Gendarmerie strip searched Shaw and found the knife that Mei-ling had planted on him. The knife was quickly confirmed as the one that had killed Panzer and the Ring Assassin, and the prints on it matched to him, so they started questioning him about why he'd killed them. When the alert came up that Shaw had been arrested in France, Director Preston took a degree of pleasure in following the traditional protocols for situations like this and scrubbing any and all evidence of connections between Shaw and the CIA. It didn't help Shaw at all when he tried to convince his questioners that Carina Miller, along with a shaved headed man and an Asian woman on the plane were responsible for the deaths and were framing him, because as soon as the plane had landed at Charles de Gaulle, Chuck and the tech team scrubbed all references of Carina, Vinnie and Mei-Ling from all the systems, including those on the plane (as soon as they connected the plane's systems to the airport systems to update the information, access was available to alter the records in the on-board systems). As a result, Shaw's claims just got him more of a beating from the increasingly frustrated Air Transport Gendarmerie.

When they started checking his story, Shaw was doing a good job of convincing them that he was a dangerous lunatic and was well on the way to disappearing into the system for the criminally insane, as every CIA related number or person he gave them either didn't exist, or was adamant that they'd never heard of him. Unfortunately, he remembered a reasonably highly placed French public servant who he had the dirt on who wasn't bright enough to deny knowing him, and confirmed that he had in fact known him for years. This, along with the fact that Shaw was right handed while Carina and Vinnie, who'd actually done the killings, were both left handed, introduced enough doubt that the French Authorities just sent him back to the United States to let them deal with him. Shaw had to use his personal credit card to get a ticket, of course, because all of his CIA resources had been wiped out, and he only just had enough limit on his personal card to get back to Washington via Cattle Class.

In Langley, Shaw somehow managed to get in to see the Acting DCIA, but while Director Preston easily handled everything thrown at him for burning Shaw by pointing out that that was the established protocol when an agent had been arrested on foreign soil, he wasn't able to present a good enough argument to prevent Shaw from being reinstated and assigned to the operation again. The call he made to General Beckman to advise her that Shaw was on his way back to Los Angeles was one he would rather not have had to make.

* * *

When he arrived at the CCE Bunker, Shaw went for Carina, until Casey stopped him by stepping in front of him. Even so, he was so enraged that he was pretty much shouting in Casey's face "You set me up you bitch! You and those other two, I'll get you for that!"

Chuck barked "Shaw!" When he ignored him, Chuck reached out to clamp onto a nerve spot on his shoulder which had him on his knees, screaming in agony. "Shaw, you'll control yourself or I'll have Major Casey throw you out and we'll have you removed from the operation, do you understand?"

When Shaw didn't respond, he dug into the spot again "I said, do, you, understand?"

"Yes, yes, I understand! Stop, please stop!"

Chuck let him go and signalled Casey to get him up and bring him into the conference room. Casey got no small amount of enjoyment out of doing this quite roughly, shoving him down in the same chair Chuck had ordered him to take last time.

As soon as they were settled, the screen lit up with the images of General Beckman and Director Preston. Director Preston peered at Shaw, saying "Agent Shaw looks worse than he did the last time I saw him, what happened there Special Agent Carmichael?"

Chuck looked at the screen "He attacked Agent Miller, screaming that she set him up, her and some other two people, so we had to control him Director. Forgive me if I'm out of line here Director, but he's quite unstable, in my opinion he's unfit to be in the field and should be placed under the care of mental health experts."

Shaw went to say something at that, until Chuck fixed him with a look that chilled him to the bone and he clamped his mouth shut.

The Director looked at Shaw in distaste "Yes, I tend to agree with you on that point Agent Carmichael, but unfortunately I was overruled."

He looked at Carina but directed his next question at Chuck "Agent Miller looks better today, the reports from the doctors are good I hope?"

Chuck smiled at Carina "Yes, thank you Sir, the expectation is it won't take her long to fully recover from the poisoning. We still don't know who assisted her when she was poisoned by the other Ring agent on the plane, we suspect that it was DGSE agents that she was working with on a long term assignment in Europe, but they're officially saying that they know nothing about it."

The Director did address Carina then "Well I'm glad to see you looking better and to hear that prognosis Agent Miller." Carina smiled at him "Thank you Sir."

His next question was back to Chuck "Have you discovered anything else on those disks?"

"Nothing new Sir, we're liaising with our people in Europe, as well as the DGSI, DGSE and Interpol, to narrow the noose on the Ring's people over there, primarily in France."

Shaw jumped up at that, screaming "This is my operation! You had no authority to open that lock box or look into any of this without me!"

The Director barked at him "Sit down and shut up Shaw! When Agent Miller returned with the key, as she'd promised, even though she'd been poisoned in the process of finishing the assignment after you failed, the CIA gave Agent Carmichael full authority to proceed with all dispatch before the Ring could move any operations which may be compromised. You were in no position to do anything as you'd gotten yourself arrested by the French authorities! And I shouldn't need to tell you this, but I obviously do, it was never YOUR operation, it was the CIA's operation, but now the Intersect Project is running with it." He nodded to Chuck to continue.

"Thank you Sir, we've merged the information on the disks with the later information, such as it is, to configure the search engines to identify Ring activities, as results come in, we're evaluating them, and using them to optimise the search engine behaviour where appropriate."

"Thank you Special Agent Carmichael, is there anything else at this time?"

"Actually, there is Director!" came from Sarah as she stood, picking something up from the table and heading for Shaw. Chuck went with her, knowing what this was about.

Sarah held up the wedding rings that had been in an envelope in the bottom of the lock box, asking "Did you really send a married woman undercover into a nest of vipers like the Ring by herself without support for two years Shaw?"

Chuck braced himself to take Shaw out if he attacked her, but aside from snatching the rings off her he didn't do anything, he just looked at the rings and said "She was Evelyn Shaw, Eve, My Wife."

He looked up at Sarah and said "We both made the same mistake Sarah, we both fell in love with spies." His expression showed that he thought that they were actually having a moment there, even though Sarah was staring at him in horror and disgust, but Chuck put a stop to that a moment later when he asked.

"Did you know about the Ring's loyalty tests before you sent your wife in there Shaw?"

Silence came crashing down in the room, as everyone who'd been there when they made Shaw tell what he knew about the Ring knew the answer to that question.

Shaw wanted to lie, but knew that there was no point. "Yes."

Aunt D hadn't been in the loop then, but she could tell from the tension in the room that this was important, so she asked. "Agent Carmichael, what are you talking about?"

Chuck was having trouble composing himself enough to answer, so Carina did "Shaw told us about how any female agents joining the Ring are made to prove their loyalty by servicing their superiors, and anyone else they're told to, doing anything and everything they're told to without complaint. He made a point of telling us quite a bit about what he'd been hearing ever since he started looking into them about what they were forcing women to do when they joined the organisation, to prove to us how terrible the Ring was."

Chuck's eyes didn't leave Shaw as he said "Director, what do you want to do here?"

"Do you need him to provide any further information?"

"No Sir."

"Shaw, report to Los Feliz and await further orders!"

Chuck glanced at Casey, who nodded and pulled Shaw up out of the seat, frog marching him from the room.

* * *

Looking back at the screen, Chuck said "You know that there's a good chance he'll run, don't you?"

The Director nodded "That's a good bet, but I'd be interested to hear your reasoning?"

"Firstly, sorry Sir, but every male CIA Agent I've ever met bar one believes that he's god's gift to women and can't imagine any woman resisting him, but when he made his advances at Agent Walker she shot him down and treated him like the dross he was, that hit him hard and started the problems."

"You've met a CIA Agent who WASN'T like that? You're one up on me then Agent Carmichael, I have to admit that even I was a little like that at one time, sorry, continue."

"Second, he came in here with the expectation that we'd all bow down to him and do his bidding, because he was a CIA Special Agent, but we all shot him down pretty hard, me most of all I'm afraid, because of the way he was going after Agent Walker." He glanced at the screen "We're involved, but I've seen you note that Sir."

The Director nodded with a smile "Yes, but thank you for showing me the trust of telling me."

"Third, he obviously held the belief that as his superior in the CIA, you'd back him up in any disagreement with other agencies, no matter what he did, but you were coming down on our side from the start, and you essentially threw him to the wolves in Paris."

"I was actually following existing protocols to distance the CIA from the agent when they're arrested on foreign soil. I must admit though that they were old protocols and I pushed it as far as I thought I could, because I find it offensive that something like that is part of my agency."

Chuck nodded "Finally, and in my opinion the most significant, was his wife's rings. Now that it's on record about what happens to women going into the Ring, he would have been desperate to get rid of that evidence, because the proof that he'd sent his own wife into something like that for two years, in the form of her wedding rings being with the intel she'd collected, would I expect kill any hope of advancement in any organisation, and I'm sure that someone like Shaw would have seen himself as being a Director as soon as he could pull off some major operation."

The Director nodded thoughtfully "Thank you, you've presented some angles to this that I hadn't considered. I've sent agents to his tracker's location to pick him up, but how do you see this playing out?"

Chuck considered for a moment "I think it will come down to how big his ego is. If logic prevails, he'll run, as he'll know he's finished. But if his ego prevails, he'll turn up at Los Feliz, certain that there's no way that Special Agent Daniel Shaw can't win. The fact that he actually tried to make a moment with Agent Walker out of the fact that we had proof that he'd sent his own wife in there to be used and abused for two years implies that his ego will win out."

The Director nodded again "I dare say you're right Agent Carmichael, thank you."

With that, they cut the links, and Sarah suddenly grabbed Chuck's hand and dragged him through to the Dungeon. It was obvious that something was upsetting her, so Carina and Casey followed.

* * *

In the Dungeon, Sarah all but begged Chuck to bring up Evelyn Shaw's files, given how upset she was, he didn't ask questions, just got into the CIA's archives to locate them and bring them up on screen. As soon as the woman's image came up on screen, Sarah started crying. Chuck pulled her into his arms to comfort her, asking her "What is it?"

Sarah pointed to the image on screen "I terminated Evelyn Shaw as a double agent in Paris in 2005, while the CAT Squad were breaking up. I was a mess because I believed that Zondra was the traitor, so I didn't question it too much when Graham didn't give me more than a picture and a location. I accepted the idea that they didn't know what name she was using, because it wasn't uncommon for me to go through half a dozen identities in a week back then as I took on short missions, go in, do something and move on."

"It didn't click until Shaw said that the woman he put in there was his own wife, because this woman welcomed death, she almost thanked me, I've never seen such haunted eyes before or since, and when he said that, it occurred to me that nothing could be worse than being in a hell like that for years, knowing that it was your own husband who put you there." She looked at Carina "Carina, you know how bad it was for you, can you imagine what it would have been like if it was someone you loved who put you in that?"

The look of pain and horror that crossed Carina's face at that thought was terrible to watch.

While they were considering just what Shaw had done to his wife, Chuck had a realisation. "Shit, if Shaw finds out that it was you who eliminated his wife, he's bound to come after you for taking her from him, even though he was the one who'd already killed her on the inside. We need to do something about him."

They all nodded at that, and Chuck looked at Sarah "We need to tell Preston."

She didn't like that thought, but nodded, it was the logical thing to do, so they headed down the small meeting room.

Director Preston noted when the link came up (forced again) that they were in a different room, but what caught his attention more was how upset Agent Walker was looking.

As soon as the Director and Aunt D were up, Chuck jumped into it "Do you have Shaw in custody Director?"

He shook his head "No, it appeared that he was heading in, as you expected, but he got a phone call and pulled over. A few minutes later the trackers in his phone went dead, and when our people got to the location, his car was there, but he was gone."

He watched them looking at each other, worried "What is it Agent Carmichael?"

"We've had a worrying development in this Director" He looked at Sarah and she nodded resignedly, and looking at the screen, she told him and Aunt D pretty much what she'd told Chuck and the others, only leaving out Zondra's name, but adding that she'd got Chuck to bring up Evelyn Shaw's records to confirm that the woman she'd been ordered to terminate was her.

The Director looked disturbed about this "Director Graham ordered this?" He hadn't missed that Chuck could and did access CIA records, but that was a minor issue at that point.

Sarah nodded "Yes, sir, it should be in the records for June 2005."

Chuck shared a look with Casey, she was really upset if she'd forgotten that her records had been removed, he dug out the relevant record and waited for the Director to get the 'Record Removed' message, then sent it, along with Evelyn Shaw's file, saying "It's on its way to you Director."

The Director nodded thanks as Aunt D explained that all of Sarah's records had been removed from the CIA systems by Presidential order when she left the CIA. When the files arrived and he opened what Chuck had sent him, there was no doubt that Agent Walker was correct about who she'd terminated was.

The question about WHY she'd been ordered to terminate her was disturbing, but it'd take some time to get access to the records that could answer that question, and there were more immediate issues to worry about "You know that he'll come after you if he finds out about this, Agent Walker?"

She nodded "Yes, we've discussed that Sir."

"I presume you're taking the necessary measures to ensure she's protected Agent Carmichael?"

* * *

Chuck nodded "Yes, Sir"

On a whim he decided to see where they stood with this man "We have some NSA resources available to us if the Ring attacks in force, can we rely on any CIA resources to assist us in that eventuality Director?"

The Director nodded without hesitation "Yes, we have an experienced SAD team in Los Angeles, unofficially of course, I will advise them to stand ready, they'll be on the way as soon as you call."

Casey caught Chuck's eye and nodded approvingly "Might I suggest sir that you advise them that it's Smith and Jones' house, that will improve their response."

Preston tried to cover his surprise "I presume that should mean something to them, if it were true?"

Casey nodded "Yes, Sir, and it is."

The Director's mind was going a mile a minute now, as Casey was telling him that this was the house of some special operations legends, and he'd been involved in that side of things long enough to know those names. There was no way Casey was Smith or Jones, though he may well be Brown or White, probably Brown, so there was only one possibility who Smith could be. He looked at Carmichael and saw the enigmatic smile on his face when he saw that the message had been received.

Wondering at that, he looked at Walker, she wasn't 'Jones', that woman would be a little older, but if Carmichael was Smith, then that would probably make her the one that they'd been talking about for nearly two years now, wouldn't it? His partner who was almost as good as he was, and who'd been in the game for over ten years now, but that didn't fit with all those locker room stories about Walker, according those stories she was just like Miller. His eyes suddenly widened as he remembered OTHER stories about Walker, the ones that most people had dismissed, about her being Graham's legendary Enforcer, THEY would fit this Walker! That would also explain Graham giving her orders to terminate agents. Come to think of it, the way she'd described that, it had been nothing out of the ordinary.

Just then he noticed Agent Carmichael looking at the screen, his smile had grown to a quite satisfied one as he watched this dawning on the Director, and when he saw that he had his attention, he nodded to confirm it. Preston returned the nod, appreciating the trust they were showing in sharing this, with their recent history with the CIA that was a big gesture.

With that they wound up the discussion and broke the connections.

* * *

As they discussed that they were going to do, Chuck reconfigured the cameras in and around the parking garage that Shaw had been using as an entrance to watch them 24/7 and keyed up the defensive measures in the tunnel he used to access the CCE Bunker. They had an advantage here though, because even if the Ring DID get through the defensive measures in the tunnel and managed to breach the bunker, they'd only be in a decoy Bunker, and the controls for the Dungeon were much more than the decoy's.

Chuck couldn't help worrying about the danger Shaw represented to Sarah though. By himself he wasn't a threat, he wasn't bright enough to be dangerous, but if he was being coached and directed by others who were brighter than he was, well a mad dog that was trained to attack could be dangerous.

The issue of Evelyn Shaw's execution order brought up the question about what else Graham had been involved in that might come back to bite them. His original files were probably the only place that they'd ever get the answers about the plans for all of them, and he'd been interfering with Chuck and Sarah's families since the seventies, Carina since she was sixteen, even the way that Casey had coerced into joining the NSA in '89 had a smell of Graham's methods about it, it certainly wasn't approved NSA practice to do something like that. If they wanted to get ahead of this, they needed to find the history of what had been done.

One advantage that they did have was that the CIA was behind them in technology issues, especially since they'd lost Stefan, Laszlo, Pete, Simon, Steve and Lucas, as they'd been the cream of their technology minds. Another advantage they had was it was almost guaranteed that their agents hadn't thought about the nuts and bolts of computer systems and how they were run and maintained. The average person didn't know that the files you deleted from the systems to cover your tracks often still existed on the archival backup media.

That was the basis of the main plan that Chuck came up with. Luckily his father was starting to show real improvement with Dr Dreyfus, so Chuck could sit down and have a lucid and logical discussion with him about how to achieve what he wanted to do. Stefan funded the creation of a data centre with masses of tape and storage silos, and Chuck started slipping movement orders in for all of the CIA's backup and archival media, going back as far as it went, to be cycled through this data centre. The process would take months, if not more, to go through all of this, but he started with a bite from 2002 to 2006 to get the story of the Shaws and Sarah's involvement in that. This was the best way he could see to protect her for the current situation.

They also staged incursions into all places known to be known and frequented by Graham, to search for computers, storage devices, documents, anything that might tell them what he'd been planning.

As the backup archives for the period period came in, Chuck put together a lot of information about what Graham had been doing. One thing he found was that, even with what she was being subjected to in there, Evelyn Shaw had done quite a good job of rooting out the Ring's secrets, and that was why she had to die.

Graham had promoted Daniel Shaw to Special Agent and assigned him to be the lead agent for any and all investigations into the Ring BECAUSE he knew that Shaw was useless, and wouldn't get close to anything important. This let Graham bury any legitimate investigations, because it meant that anything important that anyone else dug up would be funnelled into the black hole of Shaw's investigation, where it would disappear. What Graham didn't factor into the equation, though, was the fact that Evelyn Shaw was a much better spy than her husband ever was.

As a result, once Evelyn was inside the Ring, she extracted whatever information she could from those she was forced to service, and in between those demands, she was delving ever deeper into the Ring's records and structure. In 2005, Evelyn had found evidence of a link between the Ring and the CIA and was chasing the details of who that was. When she'd reported that to Daniel though, he'd of course run straight to Graham with it, and that was why she died, because that link was Graham himself.

There were copies of files that showed what Evelyn had been looking into in Graham's files, along with the kill order that went to Sarah, and the video of the assassination itself. Evelyn's relief that her ordeal would be finally be over was obvious to anyone who watched the video, and in retrospect, Graham probably did her a kindness by assigning the task to Sarah, because after she'd gone through in there, if she'd been facing a man at that point, Evelyn probably would have been left with other memories in her last moments. The reason to keep a record of the assassination was unclear, as it was a legitimate assignment and Sarah couldn't be blackmailed with it, but whatever the reason, it meant that the Ring did have the video to show to Shaw, Graham had it recorded for a reason and he would have made sure that copies were available wherever they could be used.

None of this was damaging to Sarah at all, in fact it only supported what she'd told them, so after discussing it with her Chuck packaged up everything to do with the Shaws, including the video, and sent it to Director Preston. They wanted to be on good terms with him, as they agreed that he'd be a good friend to have in the CIA, and he obviously had more integrity than most. Mary, Bry, Roan, Sarah and Pete had also checked on him with the people they knew, and the general consensus was that Thomas Preston was a good man.

* * *

While Chuck was chasing this up, they were seeing increased activity in the parking garage and around Glendale that confirmed that Shaw was working with the Ring. They generally left them alone if they were close by, just tapping into the feeds any cameras etc that they set and altering what was going back sometimes, and getting the cops to pick up Ring Agents setting cameras when women called in to report peeping toms.

After a couple of months of this, the Ring was obviously getting serious about finding them though, because they were trotting out Shaw as bait more and more. The problem with this was that the bait was working, because they all wanted to kill that bastard, and whenever they saw him strutting around the area, well Casey wasn't the only one who was getting an itchy trigger finger. The Ring kept baiting them like this until they couldn't resist any more, and when Carina spotted him, she went after him. She was so determined to make him pay for what he'd done, she ignored her training and instincts for the moment and chased him without waiting for anyone else when he took off in another Tesla (the Ring must have replaced the one he left behind) when he saw her.

Carina did still have enough self control to wait OUTSIDE the building in an out of the way business district that he'd gone into, at least until Sarah turned up (her RSR was one of the fastest cars in the garage). The problem was that ever since she'd realised that she'd been the one who'd executed Evelyn Shaw, Sarah had been haunted by the look in Evelyn's eyes as she killed her, and on top of that Carina was haunted by memories of everything she'd been forced to do by bastards like Daniel Shaw for thirteen years, which had all been dredged up when they found out about the things that Evelyn had been forced to do by her husband and the Ring. This was effecting them more they'd realised, and the thought that Shaw might get away if they waited for Chuck and the others pushed the two of them to the point of going in by themselves.

If the building Shaw ran into had been as normal and vacant as it appeared to be, with the pistols, MP5s and grenades they had between them, they would have easily gone in, taken out the maybe twenty, or even thirty, Ring Agents who might be inside, and killed Daniel Shaw slowly and painfully as planned. The problem was that the building was actually one big trap, the Ring had been obviously preparing this for months, and in fact they'd been preparing to take out the whole team, so all of the internal doors and walls were strengthened, with accesses centrally controlled so that the doors could be opened and closed remotely to channel the team members into where they wanted them and contain them there.

Sarah and Carina breached the building and quickly cleared the ground floor, disposing of five Ring Agents and disabling the lifts, before heading to the first floor, that was when they encountered the first real resistance, coming up against 12-15 agents, that slowed them down. Chuck and the others arrived in two minivans around that time, the team was Chuck, Casey, Bry, Mary, Zondra, Mei-Ling, Vinnie, Mike, Rick and Alex, and they were ready for a war. As they weren't about to waste any time getting through obstacles here, Chuck, Casey, Bry, Vinnie, Mike and Rick were all carrying the SOCOM M32 Mk 14 grenade launchers. They could hear the fire fight going on on the first floor, so they announced their presence by blowing in the front doors.

Once in they quickly re-enabled one lift, left Rick and Alex on the ground floor to deal with any Ring reinforcements and stop anyone leaving and headed up, Chuck and Casey hopped off on the first floor, Bry and Mary on the third, Zondra and Mike on the fifth and Mei-Ling and Vinnie on the seventh. The plan was for Chuck and Casey to help Sarah and Carina deal with the forces on the first floor, and then they'd head on up to clear the other floors, just as the others were going to be doing.

On the first floor, Carina was trying to deal with seven agents, who quickly went down when Chuck and Casey jumped out of the lift firing their MP5s, but as soon as they went down Carina jumped up, pointing at a door and shouting that Sarah had gone through there and it had closed and locked behind her. She got to see what made these guys special ops legends then, because Casey shot a 40mm grenade past Chuck, close enough to ruffle his hair, as he sprinted faster than she thought possible for the door, the High Explosive round taking out the door just before Chuck burst through it. The shots they were hearing from the room beyond weren't from the MP5/10 he had in his hands, though, they were from a lighter calibre, so they quickly followed him through.

Chuck spun, raising the MP5 into firing position as they entered, but nodded when he saw it was them and turned back to watch the show. Sarah was standing over Shaw on the floor, or at least what was left of Shaw. She was talking at him in a low, intense voice about what he'd put his wife through, punctuating her words with carefully placed shots. Most of his extremities were effectively gone by then, his hands and feet had been shot off and what was left of his arms and legs were only attached by shreds of skin and muscle, he'd also been shot multiple times in the gut and groin, and had his jaw shot off as well. He wasn't going to last long, but she was trying to make him suffer as much as possible before he went, trying to give him a taste of what Evelyn had been put through because of him before he went.

Sarah kept shooting Shaw for about a minute after he was finished, then went sobbing into Chuck's arms. Carina went into Casey's arms as well, and the two men shared a grim look as they comforted the women, the only regret any of them had was that Shaw hadn't suffered more.

When the women had composed themselves, Chuck asked Sarah if she was ready to get on with clearing the building, and she nodded resolutely. Carina's nod when they looked at her confirmed she was ready too, so it was decided that Chuck and Sarah would head for the second floor while Casey and Carina headed for the ninth floor, so they headed for the stairs while Casey and Carina headed for the lift, but Casey stopped as he reached the doorway, turning and raising the M32 to fire a grenade into Shaw's remains, the explosion sprayed them all over the room.

Fifteen minutes later, they were just about done mopping up the rest of the Ring agents in the building (there had been over a hundred of them in there) when Anna called to say that the cops were getting close, so they quickly exited the building and got the hell away from there, with Chuck driving Sarah in her RSR and Zondra driving Carina in her Mustang convertible (with the top and windows up to avoid the battledress she was wearing attracting too much interest). Needless to say, both Sarah and Carina got a good talking to about being crazy enough to go into that building without backup on the way back to Quixote House.

Of course, the 'talking to's were repeated by Aunt D, Ellie, Emma and everyone else that loved them when they got back to Quixote House when they got back, but that was to be expected.

* * *

As the fallout from Sarah and Carina's berserker attack on the Ring building died down, the disks that were being shipped in with the CIA archive information continued to come in, and Chuck was running searches over the CIA's backup archives to locate anything that Graham may have left, copying everything that came up to another area that he'd allocated for this. The picture that was emerging was extremely disturbing, because barely two thirds of what was there (if that) was related to CIA operations, the rest was related to Graham's own nefarious schemes and associations.

Some of the things Chuck discovered were disturbing enough to set up a special meeting with the President and the DNI the next time he went to D.C. This meeting was to fill them in on what he'd discovered so far in the files he was extracting from the CIA backup archives. He was still missing too many files to have anything definitive, but what he was seeing so far clearly showed that the reason the current Acting DCIA had been Graham's choice for his replacement was because he was working with the Ring as well.

After he'd found the first evidence of Graham's activities, Chuck had intensified his efforts to dig out anything relating to Graham or any of his known associates, like the Acting DCIA. He'd been filling in a lot of holes, but there wasn't really enough to formally indict Graham's puppet yet.

Providing that he got the evidence that they needed to make a move, this obviously meant that the Acting DCIA would have to be removed, and that led to another question, who could they trust to replace him? This was why Chuck wanted to talk to the President and DNI, because he believed that the best and safest prospect would be the CIA's current Director of the National Clandestine Service, Preston, so he wanted the DNI to start looking into him, so that Preston would be given serious consideration for the role by the time they were ready to pull the plug on the Acting DCIA.

He'd brought Aunt D into this meeting as well, and when the discussion got to that point Chuck was pushed to the side as the DNI and President discussed the fact that the rest of the intelligence services wouldn't be capable of coming up with more evidence than Chuck and his team could with Aunt D. When they'd reached agreement on that, it didn't take long, Director Preston was requested to come to the White House immediately, and he was instructed to ensure that absolutely no-one knew where he was going.

When Director Preston arrived less than twenty minutes later, he was surprised to see General Beckman and Special Agent Carmichael, for that matter, he'd been surprised, to say the least, to find that his meeting was in the Oval Office. Having the President stand and come to shake his hand when he greeted him was an experience that he'd cherish, and thinking about that, he almost missed his next words "I believe that you know the Director of National Intelligence, General Beckman and Admiral Carmichael, Director Preston?" ALMOST, but not quite.

Seeing Preston's head ship around to stare at Chuck when he said that, the President realised that he'd put his foot in it, but his next words just compounded the problem "Shit, I'm sorry Chuck, I clean forgot that Mr Preston wasn't in the loop on who you are, given the fact that he's here at your nomination." At that Director Preston's attention came back to the President just as fast "Nomination for what, precisely, Mr President?"

The President grimaced again "Take a seat Director Preston, this may be a bit to take in." When they were both seated, he went to continue but stopped, turning to the DNI. "You know the story better than I do Dennis, could you fill the Director in please?"

The DNI nodded, saying "Of course Sir" before turning to Preston.

"I believe that you've been let in on the fact that the Admiral is the one known as 'Smith' in Special Operations circles Director?" Preston nodded "Good, that makes this easier, the Admiral actually joined the DIA back in ninety three as a Navy Lieutenant, and he'd been working for an increasing number of military and intelligence services ever since then, as has his sister actually, she's the 'Jones' in 'Smith and Jones'. General Beckman has been the Director and Commander for most of their groups throughout that period but she's recently managed to get them, and their spouses, to agree to begin the process of taking over from her."

Director Preston looked at Chuck and stopped him then "Sorry sir, but could you explain that bit about their 'spouses'?"

Aunt D cut in at that point "We didn't tell you everything Director Preston, Agent Walker, or more to the point Colonel Carmichael of the Air Force, is actually Admiral Carmichael's wife, and while we're covering that, Major Casey is actually Colonel Casey and 'Brown', and he's married to Admiral Carmichael's sister, Navy Captain Eleanore Casey, Admiral Carmichael's mother, you may know her as 'Frost', is an Air Force Colonel as well and Colonel Carmichael's mother, who was known as 'the Fox' back in the day, is a Navy Captain, they're the key ones who are taking over control of the groups from me." she hesitated before she continued "As long as we're telling you this, you may as well know that I'm Admiral Carmichael and Captain Casey's Godmother, and the fourth musketeer in their Special Ops team, the one known as 'White', is their Godfather."

She went to hand back to the DNI, but he motioned her to continue "As the DNI mentioned, I finally managed to get my godchildren and the others to agree to start the process to take over as the Directors for the various groups we run recently, and the first round of promotions and appointments for that happened a couple of months ago. That is why Special Agent in Charge Carmichael is now Rear Admiral lower half Carmichael, though the plans are for further rounds of promotions over the next two to three years to complete that process. Do you have any questions on that before we proceed with what we asked you here for Director Preston?"

He looked at her for a minute or so, dumbfounded by the revelations he'd just been hit with, but shook his head and said "There are so many questions that I'd like to ask General, but I think the one I HAVE to ask is, are you really telling me that Agents Carmichael and Walker are the children of two of the CIA's biggest legends?"

Aunt D nodded "Yes, that's how they met as children, Mary and Emma were close friends, along with Bry and I, and my partner."

Director Preston shook his head again "I think I have as much information on that front as my head can handle General."

She nodded, and they looked at the President, who in turn waved to Chuck "Can you fill in the Director on what you found, please, Chuck?"

He nodded, saying "Yes, Mr President" and turned to Director Preston.

Chuck spent the next half hour going of the basics of how he'd obtained this information (and Director Preston once again noted that he apparently had more access to the most secure CIA information than the CIA did), then went into the evidence that he'd uncovered about DCIA Graham's involvement with the Ring, and the fact that the current Acting DCIA, who'd gotten the appointment on his recommendation, was also in the Ring's pocket.

Preston just stared at him, he didn't think that anything he heard could have hit him harder that the story of 'Admiral' Carmichael and his family, but hearing that the current and previous heads of the CIA were in the pockets of this 'Ring' did.

Thinking about the Ring prompted him to remember something else "Wait, what about Shaw, he's a danger if he knows about you and he's with the Ring!"

Chuck smiled grimly "Don't worry about Shaw Director, yes, he would have told them anything he thought he knew, but he isn't a problem any more."

"You can't ignore him! He's obviously a risk to Agent Walker and the rest of you!"

"He's DEAD Director, forget about him!"

This last was delivered in a tone that Preston didn't want to ever hear again, as it and the look that accompanied it chilled him. The President and the DNI looked at each other, as they'd never seen this side to Admiral Carmichael before either. They realised that they were seeing the man that their best special ops people held in such awe for the first time, and it felt a little like they were locked in the room with an angry tiger. To get past this moment, the President cleared his throat.

"Director Preston, while we do not have sufficient evidence to initiate formal proceedings against the Acting DCIA as yet, we obviously have to remove him as soon as we do, and this is where your question when you arrived fits in, Admiral Carmichael has nominated you as the most trusted of the available candidates to take over as the DCIA, and has presented considerable evidence to support this nomination. So what you have been brought here for, is to ask you whether you will accept this nomination if it is offered to you?"

The Director just stared at him, not believing what he's just heard, when he was summoned here, he thought that he, as Shaw's CIA controller, was going to be made to quit or make some other restitution for Shaw and what he did, but they were offering him the CIA, on the basis of the nomination of a man who he'd thought was just an Agent until ten minutes ago? One who was supposedly less than forty according to the records he'd looked up, but obviously couldn't be anywhere near that age?

"Director?"

"What? Oh, sorry Sir! Yes, Mr President, if I were offered the role of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, it would be my honour to accept it, and I would carry out my duties to the best of my ability!"

The DNI spoke up "Director Preston, we must ask for formal confirmation that you are aware of what will happen to you if one word of any of what was discussed here was spoken to anyone outside the four of us, especially before you are confirmed in the role of DCIA?"

Director Preston nodded, he could deal with a direct threat like this "Yes sir, I am quite aware that if I speak of any of this, I will most probably disappear into a black site for the rest of my life. Or just disappear." He added this last as he glanced at Chuck.

The President nodded and stood to come around the desk and shake his hand again "We look forward to working you in the near future Director Preston."

With a final "Thank you Mr President", Preston nodded goodbye to the others and left.

* * *

They quickly wound up the rest of their matters after that, and Chuck went to Dr Dreyfus's house to pick up his father before he returned to Los Angeles.

His father was making progress with Dr Dreyfus, but it was obvious that loading the early version of the Intersect over sixteen years ago and trying to use it when his brain wasn't properly compatible with it had done considerable damage that no amount of therapy would be able to fix. The testing that they'd done on Chuck since he loaded THEIR Intersect, though, was quite promising.

Seeing this, his mother had insisted on being the guinea pig to confirm that it wasn't just him who would see the benefits of their Intersect (for all that he'd done, she loved her husband and was prepared to take the risk to be whole again), and she'd confirmed for them that the benefits that applied to Chuck applied to others as well. She'd be needing to spend time in therapy with Dr Dreyfus to deal with the effects of the memories from her time in Volkoff's world and as an agent that had been unlocked by the Intersect, but the extensive scans and tests that Ellie did on her showed that the damage from many events in her career was now being rectified and the damaged areas were regenerating, much as they did for Chuck, so they were confident that it would do the same for Stefan too, that was why they were bringing him home.


	20. Trials and Tribulations

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this isn't the real world.**

Back in Los Angeles, Ellie ran a full battery of tests on Stefan and then, when his test results were available, Chuck and Ellie sat him down and, with Leslie and Mary's help, explained some of the unexpected and interesting aspects of the new Intersect (or Piranha Intersect, PI as they called it) that they'd created. They went into quite a bit of detail about how and why they'd pushed all the Intersect interfaces down so that they'd interact with the human brain at a subconscious level, rather than butting heads, as it were, with higher logic functions and filters.

Both Chuck and Ellie kept a close eye on their father, making sure that he was staying lucid enough to follow what they were telling him, especially as they drew closer to explaining the entirely unexpected aspect of the PI that was the reason for bringing him to Los Angeles. Well, 'tell him about' would be a better term to use than 'explain', as they didn't really KNOW why it worked, they only had their theories that were based on the nature of the results of its functions to go on there.

Sarah had discovered soon after he loaded the PI that Chuck's scars were starting to fade, and they didn't take long to disappear altogether. Of course, she'd immediately called Ellie about and Ellie had dragged Chuck straight down to the medical centre and put him through an extensive battery of intensive, and in some cases intrusive, tests, which she repeated daily when she could override his objections, but never let him off the hook for more than a day or two without making him submit to another round of tests. This meant that they had a quite accurate mapping of the damaged areas of his brain, organs and the rest of him (the various Intersects and other things had inflicted damage to more than a few sectors of his brain, and through the numerous high risk missions he'd been going on for over thirteen years now, he'd been seriously injured enough times to ensure that he'd accumulated more damage than most people, including elite soldiers, would accumulate in a lifetime), which showed how, day by day, those signs of damage were diminishing.

Their theory was that this was related to the way they'd pushed the Intersect/Brain/Body interfaces, and in particular the interfaces for the physical activities, down to the level of the native brain/body interfaces to improve the reaction times and efficiency. What they believed may have happened was that interfacing with the body's native control systems at this level had triggered the body's core healing systems, without being held back by the constraints of the higher brain functions. The result was that the host's body was repairing itself at an incredible rate, and on top of that, it was rejuvenating itself. The non medical tests that Ellie had been putting Chuck through were showing increased energy levels, aerobic and anaerobic fitness levels, flexibility, range of movement, quickness, speed, strength and endurance. His metabolism was notably faster and he was burning off more of his body fat, converting it to lean muscle mass, his food intake also increased quite a bit to provide the energy for these changes going on in his body.

It was the changes in his, and now Mary's, brain that prompted bringing Stefan to Los Angeles though. Earlier brain scans that Ellie had done on Chuck had shown notable areas of damage from the earlier Intersects, the raw version he loaded when he was nine or ten, the NSA/CIA 1.0 version that he was sent by Bryce Larkin, the Fulcrum version that he was forced to load at the Fulcrum facility (along with the Fulcrum test that'd killed the rest of the subjects), and the NSA/CIA Intersect and database upgrades he'd had a few times. He'd also had other damage occur as a result of drugs and poisons he'd been subjected to and head injuries that had been inflicted on him over the past thirteen years or so of missions. Mary didn't have his Intersect issues, but she did have thirty years of aging and twenty years of drugs, poisons and head injuries (plus extensive use of electric shock treatment in interrogations and torture) over her son, which did considerable damage to parts of her brain as well. Since they'd loaded the PI however, Ellie's tests showed evidence that this damage was diminishing at a fairly rapid rate in both of them.

When Stefan muttered something about 'SHE's put you up to this, she's trying to get you to use me as a guinea pig and get rid of me!' Ellie threw her hands up in frustration and stalked off, at least that was what Stefan thought until she grabbed a handful of his hair hard enough for it to feel like it was being ripped out by the roots and all but shouted in his ear.

"Shut up you fool! Sarah has been nothing but supportive of what Chuck and I have tried to do for you, even it you're too crazy and stubborn to see it, and the next time you bad mouth my wonderful sister in law, I, will, hurt, you! (tugging at his hair to punctuate her words) Do you understand?"

When he didn't answer, she reefed at his hair hard enough to make him cry out, saying "I asked you a question?"

"Yes! I understand!"

"Good! And as far as using you as a guinea pig goes…." She used her grip in his hair to forcedly twist his head to look at Mary "MOM has already insisted on being the guinea pig to ensure that it was safe for you, because she's stupid enough to love your ungrateful arse and want to save you! If you were still half as brilliant as you claim to be, DAD, you would have noted that the scans we've been showing you were quite clearly from two entirely different people! Agh!"

Ellie exclaimed in exasperation as she let go of her father's hair, pushing forward hard enough to bounce his head off the table as she did so.

Stefan dug out a handkerchief to hold to his bloody nose as he actually looked at the images up on screen properly for the first time, Ellie's outburst had been what he needed to get his head out of his arse and pay attention at last. He asked a few questions, the scientist in him getting quite excited about this, never more than when he pointed to one image and asked "Eleanore, what are we seeing there, it appears that there's an increase in the number of active pathways for both brain activity and memory?"

Ellie nodded "Yes, as well as repairing the damage, it appears as though the brain function and memory capacity is being expanded as a result of this function of the new Intersect, we're seeing some real world improvements for Chuck, but Mom's displaying a more marked improvement, though whether that's from repairing the degeneration of a hard life that's been twice as long, or this expansion that we appear to seeing, we're not sure yet."

Stefan nodded thoughtfully, and looked between his children, who were standing beside each other again "You want me to load this new Intersect, don't you?"

Chuck nodded "Yes Dad we, and Mom, believe that it's the only way you'll ever be right again, we agree with Doctor Dreyfus that you'll never improve past where you are now without doing this, and that it's only a matter of time before the damage from the continuing degeneration is too much for you to recover from."

Ellie interjected at that point "You'll still need to go back work with to Doctor Dreyfus for a few months more at least though, because face it, you're a mess! Mom will also be going back with you when you do, because she needs to work with him to deal with the memories that came up again for her when she loaded the PI."

Stefan looked at them, then looked at Mary, reaching out to take her hand. Looking back at Chuck and Ellie, he nodded sadly "You're right, I'll load the new Intersect and then go back to Doctor Dreyfus to get my head straightened out, hopefully after that I'll be ready to rejoin my family."

With the decision made, Ellie brought up Stefan's test results, it was little surprise to anyone to see that he had significantly more severe damage to his brain than either Chuck or Mary, to the order of several times as much. It was a wonder that he was even as functional as he was with that much damage, but there was no question that he would be MUCH better off with it repaired, so they made the preparations and loaded the Piranha Intersect into him.

They kept Stefan there for a week while Ellie ran more tests on him. That week was enough to confirm that he was lucid and stable (rather more so than he'd been before), and for his brain scans to begin showing quite noticeable reductions in the extent of the damaged areas. With that, the next time one of them had to make one of their frequent trips to Washington for meetings, Stefan and Mary went with them, heading back to Dr Dreyfus' house for treatment. At least now, they could see a good probability that Stefan would be back to the way he was before he started to fall apart or more to the point, in fact better than that because he was really working with Dr Dreyfus to address his pre-Intersect issues now.

With three successful loads for the Piranha Intersect now, Sarah, Casey, Bry, Mei-Ling and Vinnie all said that they wanted to load it now. Zondra and Carina also wanted to do it, but Chuck, Ellie and Sarah pointed out the issues that Mary had had, which created a need for her to work with Dr Dreyfus, so they argued that it would be better to wait until he'd finished with Mary and Stefan and could devote more time to them before they did it, because of the trauma that it could bring up for them.

* * *

A couple of weeks later, Casey got a call the Colonel who'd made him change from Alex Coburn to John Casey.

Casey's initial reaction was to hang up on Keller, but he decided that he had to find out what he was after, so he played along with him, and set up a meet at his old apartment in the suburbs that night.

While Casey filled Chuck and the others in on what had happened twenty years ago, Carina and Zondra went out to clean the apartment up and make it look lived in before going into Ellie and Chuck's apartment to wait with Vinnie and Mei-Ling, in case he needed assistance.

In January 1989, First Lieutenant Alexander Coburn was advised by the Lieutenant Colonel processing the soldiers trying to get into training that he hadn't qualified for training with Special Operations Command and that he was being sent back home to his unit. He couldn't understand that, he'd always been one of the best at what he did, but he wasn't one to argue with a superior officer, so he accepted it.

As he walked away from the tent in dejection, though, he was accosted by a Colonel, James Keller, who'd made him an offer to join a NSA black ops team, selling it up on the basis that it was his chance to truly serve his country, but to do that, Alex Coburn had to die. At that moment he couldn't see anything else but the shame of going back because he wasn't good enough, and duty was something he couldn't turn away from, so he'd agreed.

After he'd agreed to take Kellers' offer, Keller had made him call Kathleen, his fiancé, and pretend that everything was fine, even though he was about to disappear out of her life. Kathleen had just started to tell him something when Keller took the phone off him and hung it up. The next day, Alexander John Coburn had officially died, to be replaced by John Casey.

"The training when I went into the black ops group was brutal, but I stayed at the front of the group all the way through. Actually that was what made me think about how things had gone that night, I was told I was a wash out, which didn't make sense, and then Keller just happened to be right there to make me an offer? It had to be a setup." Chuck nodded at that, and said that he'd look into it.

"Anyway, I got through training at the top of the heap, and went into the NSA black ops strike teams, but like Bry in SAD, I was often getting loaned out to work with agents in the field, so they also put me through the field agent training at the Farm, and I moved into that side of the operations.

I came under the General's command for a few missions early on, and the powers that be must have decided that she managed to get the best out of me, because I ended up assigned to her command. About two and a half years later she started assigning me to watch out for a twelve year old kid and his fifteen year old sister, and you know where the story went from there."

"So now Keller calls me out of the blue over twenty years later and says that he has a deal that I can't refuse? There's something going on here, and it isn't going to be good."

Chuck had gotten an information flash on Keller when Casey had first mentioned his name, but he was letting Casey finish his story, and now he had, Chuck responded.

"Keller is actually Ring, he was dishonourably discharged in the mid '90s for some unauthorised and illegal operations and he appears to be one of the original Ring members in the USA, so this will be for something that the Ring wants. The question is, what does he think he has over you that would make you cooperate with him?"

Casey shook his head, "I don't know for sure, the only thing I can think of is that they know about Alex, but I'll have to talk to him to find out, so I'll head out to the house in an hour or so at 1700."

Chuck nodded "You may want to change into the CCE uniform to keep your image closer to what he expects from you?" Casey nodded at that, saying "Good idea, yeah, I'll do that."

Casey headed off in his Crown Vic at 1700 to the apartment, apparently coming home from a boring cover job. Fifteen minutes later a very frumpishly dressed Mei-Ling came knocking at his door "Mr Casey, can you help me please? My washing machine has stopped again, and you are the only one who can to fix it."

That got a wry smile out of Casey, to see the amazing woman who was China's top spy and assassin playing a frumpy Asian housewife who couldn't do anything. "Sure Mrs Lee, I'll just grab some tools and come up."

With a glint in her eye, Mei-Ling responded "Oh, thank you so much Mr Casey." and she toddled back to "her" apartment. When Casey turned up with his bag of tools, she let him in deferentially, like a good Asian housewife, but he chuckled and made some crack about her doing the middle aged housewife impression well as soon as he was in the door.

Carina snapped at him "Johnny! We get that you're worried, but that's no excuse for getting pissy with Mei-Ling!" Her face and tone softened a little "We're all here to help you because we care about you, you know that!"

He nodded, ashamed of himself, and abjectly apologised to Mei-Ling, who came forward to hug him, telling him that she understood. While she was hugging him, he whispered in her ear "If you and Vinnie want some quiet time, Ellie's room is the nicest, just make sure the blinds are shut, she always forgot to close them." Mei-Ling blushed at that, but laughed, slapping him on the chest before she stretched up on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek with a smile, she and Vinnie weren't exactly hiding their blossoming relationship, but they had been trying to keep it quiet. They should have known though, being part of an extended family of spies as they were, that everyone would have picked it up by now, just as they'd seen it when Zondra and Mike and Carina and Leslie got together.

That brought the mood in the room up again and they quickly ran through what they'd be doing, Casey bringing up the feeds from the surveillance equipment in his apartment and the courtyard on the screen that they'd seen Carina on the night that she turned up before heading back into his own apartment. They settled down to keep an eye on what happened, the girls laughing when it turned out that the only one of them who knew their way around the kitchen well enough to cook dinner was Vinnie, though Mei-Ling wasn't too far behind him. When they teased the other two about that, Zondra argued that Mike was a good enough cook to look after them, and Carina tried to argue that there was nothing wrong with take-out, but they insisted that at least one person in a couple needed to know how to cook, so they made her help with dinner.

* * *

Colonel Keller turned up after 1900, and he tried to make it a friendly chat, but Casey just said "Colonel, you haven't turned up after twenty years just to chat about old times, what can I do for you?"

Keller wasn't too happy for Casey to take control of the discussion off of him, but he just went with it. "In the morning, your team will be allocated a trace cell mission for the CIA secure archives in D.C. and we need you to collect something for us."

"Who's we, Colonel?"

"The people I work for John, you don't need to know any more than that."

"I think I do Colonel." Keller threw a folder on the table in front of him "No, you don't."

Casey looked in the folder, and saw pictures of Kathleen, the fiancé that he left behind, along with Alex. They appeared to be taken in the last year, so it must have been one of the times that Alex went to see her mother, but she did that quite often. He forced himself to remain casual as he said "So? Yeah, she was my fiancé, but she's obviously moved on as that looks like that's her daughter with her."

Keller smirked at him "Keep looking John."

Casey looked under the photos, and there was a birth certificate for Alexandra McHugh, born in August 1989, showing Alexander Coburn as the father.

Keller smirked at him again as he smugly said "That's why you're going to do this no questions asked, John, because we can get to your daughter and her mother any time we want, and I'm sure you don't want to lose them again so soon after you've found them."

Casey wanted to kill the bastard now, but he couldn't do anything until they had Kathleen and her husband somewhere safe.

"What do you want me to get?"

"If you keep pushing me by asking questions, John, we may have some fun with them just to teach you a lesson, Kathleen is still quite a looker, and so is your daughter."

"If any of you lay one finger on either of them Keller, I'll tear you limb, from limb, from limb!"

"How am I supposed to know what to take to bring it out if I have no idea what it is? Do I need a trolley, a bio containment cylinder, a lead lined box, what?"

"Relax, you can put it in your pocket, here." He threw a digital key on the table. "I'll expect to hear from you as soon as you get back."

With that he turned and walked out.

* * *

Casey watched the external surveillance systems long enough to be sure that Keller had left, and that they hadn't left anyone watching the apartments, before he ducked across to Ellie and Chuck's old apartment and they started a video conference, bringing in the ones at Quixote House and Aunt D.

He went over what Keller was demanding from him, even though they'd all watched it, and Aunt D confirmed that they'd just received the request for a Trace Cell mission to test the security of the CIA's secure archives. Chuck brought up the information on the contents of the box that Casey was tasked with emptying.

Keller had been right about the portability, what that box held was the samples of an experimental drug, Laudenol, which was designed to suppress all emotions, the idea was that if soldiers felt no fear, excitement or other human emotions, they would be able to function more efficiently on the battlefield.

Chuck dug out all the information there was on the Laudenol's indicators and effects, and then used Fulcrum's drug and poisons database to determine what combination of other drugs could be used to simulate the effects of the Laudenol for half an hour to an hour, which would allow them to replace the Laudenol with a less dangerous fake.

Carina replayed the clip of Keller saying that they could get to them any time they wanted, and also the one about having fun with them to teach him a lesson. The growls that could be heard weren't just coming from Casey and Alex (she was Daddy's girl alright), Bry, Chuck and Sarah were growling too, it was obvious that, as soon as they had Kathleen and her family somewhere safe, Keller and co were in for a world of hurt.

Chuck and Sarah were thinking about what they'd do if anyone threatened the girls, or their other children that they were hoping for, like that, and the others could see on their faces that that spelt death for someone. Chuck left the decision to Casey. "Are we picking them up now, or are we shadowing them until we come back from D.C. so we can get Keller and the rest?"

Casey hadn't thought that far ahead, he was only thinking of doing what it took to make sure that Kathleen and her husband were safe. Chuck had brought up all the details for them on screen, and Sarah cut in. "OK, it looks like Mei-Ling and Anna are close to Kathleen and Alex's size and Vinnie is close to Ron's size, with wigs and makeup that should be able to fool Keller's goons as long as they don't get too close, and if they do get that close, they can kill them."

When she asked whether Mei-Ling and the others were willing to do this, they just said "Of course!" So, while Mei-Ling, Anna and Vinnie were getting ready, John and Alex called Kathleen to explain the situation to her and Ron.

Keller must have been confident that Casey couldn't find them on his own and wouldn't risk bringing anyone else into it, because he didn't have anyone watching the house yet. That made it a much simpler job. They slipped in and led them out to the van, while Mei-Ling, Anna and Vinnie took their places. They took Kathleen and Ron back to Quixote house and put them in one of the apartments that had been prepared for them

* * *

The next morning Chuck, Sarah, Casey and Carina hopped on a government C-37 to D.C. to do the Trace Cell mission. Chuck and Ellie had prepared the fake Laundenol capsules the night before, and they behaved as expected, so they'd do the substitution and leave the real Laudenol in the box that they were getting the mission test package from.

The Trace Cell mission went smoothly, they collected what they were supposed to, left the Laudenol in the General's secure box, and got out. The ease with which they got through the so-called security measures was a concern, and the presentation of their verbal reports was made much more aggravating by the obnoxious little tool who'd been sure that his controls were impregnable, Stanley Fitzroy.

They probably shouldn't have laughed when Carina went off at him, but it was just so fitting because of the way he'd been following all of them around constantly asking stupid questions about how they got through his controls, so when Carina ended up screaming at him "Fuck! If I let you sniff my arse and get it over with will you get the fuck away from me?" they'd all burst out laughing, even some of the Senior CIA people in the room were having difficulty keeping a straight face after that.

At that point Chuck decided that they'd had enough and he informed the CIA that the briefing was over, they would supply detailed reports of where the controls failed, but they were not going to waste any more time going over the same things again and again.

They stood and headed for the door, but Chuck stopped when he heard a comment one of the CIA officials made about Sarah (he had to talk to Ellie about that, on top of everything else, his senses seemed to be heightened now). Casey looked at him, but Chuck signalled him to get the girls out of there. The look on his face told Casey that someone was going to be in a world of hurt because of something that they'd done, so he did as Chuck asked.

As soon as they'd left, Chuck walked over to the one who'd spoken and asked him what he'd said. The guy arrogantly repeated his comment about what he'd like to do to her in even cruder terms and went to turn to walk away from him, but Chuck caught his arm, digging into a nerve point that had him on his knees in agony, also hitting him with a nerve strike to the S2-S4 area at the base of his spine, destroying the nerves there.

The others descended on Chuck but he so easily subdued the first few that the rest backed away from him when they saw what he could do. Chuck walked up to the first guy with a cold smile on his face and quietly told him (too quietly for anyone else to hear).

"That was my wife that you were talking about arsehole, so you brought this on yourself. You'll find out soon enough what I did, because from now on your sex life will only consist of taking it, rather than giving it. Enjoy the rest of your life you bastard." The guy looked horrified at that and grabbed at him, but Chuck shook him off easily, then casually walked out the door.

In the plane on the way back to L.A. a call came through from Aunt D. The others looked at Chuck when they heard the worry in Aunt D's voice as she asked "What did you do to him Chuck?" Chuck calmly explained that it was a localised nerve strike that only effected the nerves that controlled arousal and erection, but the strike destroyed those nerves.

When Aunt D said he couldn't go around doing that, he repeated both things the guy had said about Sarah, and pointed out that the alternative would have had far worse repercussions, and would have required a lot bigger cleaning bill. Then he changed the subject and reminded her that she had to set up a meeting with the CIA to find out who'd had possession of the key that the Ring gave to Casey to get into that secure box in the most restricted area of the secure archives, as whoever that person was had obviously been compromised and would have to be dealt with.

* * *

When they got back to L.A. Casey called Keller and set up a meet, while Chuck organised some clean up teams, and made sure that Bry, Zondra and Mike had slipped into Kathleen's house to back up Mei, Anna and Vinnie, because they knew that as soon as Casey handed over the "Laudenol", Keller would be sending a team in to grab Kathleen and Alex.

They knew that Keller's plan would be to take them to try and make Casey turn and join the Ring, and if Casey wouldn't turn, Keller would definitely do what he'd threatened before to them. For that matter, with someone like Keller, even if Casey did turn, as soon as he thought that Casey had outlived his usefulness or he could get away with it, he'd follow through on his threats against them, just because he could.

Chuck and Sarah rode the last leg into Keller's compound strapped to the bottom of the SUV Casey was driving, and once he'd gone inside, they quietly unclipped themselves from the bottom of the SUV and went out either side of the machine.

With Sarah's competitive streak, she might have complained about how Chuck took out over three quarters of Keller's twenty four man team faster than she'd managed to deal with the last four or five if she wasn't so glad that they were taken out so quickly and quietly.

* * *

Inside the cabin, Keller was pissed off, because this was the second time that a discussion with John Casey hadn't gone the way he'd wanted. He was still waiting on word from his men that they had the fiancé and the daughter, so he could make Casey an offer he couldn't refuse, join us or we'll take turns with your daughter and fiancé until they're finished, but the call hadn't come yet for some reason, so he was trying to stall for time, and the guy wasn't much of a conversationalist.

Eventually, Casey snorted and said "Stop looking at your phone Keller, your men at Kathleen's house will all be dead or captured by now."

Keller froze, but Casey went on. "I know what you are Keller, and the people I work for got Kathleen and Alexandra out last night."

When Keller went to say something, Casey shook his head with a grim smile "No, the two women that your men saw were two of the agents that we put in the house to wait for your men."

Keller ran for the door and threw it open, only to see all of his men down, and a man and a woman standing there, looking at him. Casey spoke up from behind him. "Now that's my boss, he wants a word with you."

* * *

After they took out all of Keller's men, Chuck and Sarah were discussing the fear that Keller's threats against Alex had invoked in them, because the idea that bastards like this might come after the girls or other children they may have terrified them. The fact that Sarah was the one that noticed that something was happening in the cabin showed how much this was effecting Chuck.

"Chuck, there's movement inside."

Chuck faced the cottage just before the front door was wrenched open, and he looked a very worried looking Keller in the eye as Casey said something behind him.

Keller looked into the eyes of the tall man outside, and knew that he was in trouble when the man headed towards the cottage.

Chuck nodded to Casey and Casey grabbed Keller by the shoulder, dragging him back into the cottage. As they went inside, Chuck asked Sarah to find some rope or something as Casey swept everything off the table. She found some cord, but as Casey was about to hoist Keller up onto the table, she called out.

"Wait, Chuck, can you show me how to do the eunuch strike?"

"The what?"

"What you did to that bastard who was talking shit about me, there are a lot of those bastards out there who need to be permanently turned off!"

Chuck nodded, then turned to Casey and added "Casey, you don't need to watch this if you don't want to."

Casey turned to look at him incredulously "Are you kidding? This pig was planning for him and his men to rape my little girl." When he saw the look on Keller's face he added "Yeah, I saw what was in your eyes when you said that you bastard, no matter what I did you were determined to have your piece of my daughter." Looking back at Chuck he finished, "I want to see how to do this too, like Sarah said, there are a lot of bastards out there who need to be turned off!"

Casey held Keller by the shoulder and pushed him up against the table, pulling up Keller's shirt so that Chuck could clinically describe the location of the nerves in the S2 to S4 region of the spine, and the angle and force needed for the strikes.

When Sarah and Casey indicated that they'd activated the Movement Matching function in their Intersects, Chuck made a series of strikes to the area he'd shown them. One strike should be enough, but a number of strikes was more of a guarantee that those nerves would be damaged beyond repair.

With that, Chuck nodded to Casey again and Casey hoisted him onto the table, holding him there while they tied his hands and feet to the table legs.

Casey and Sarah made one last try to get Chuck to let them do this, but he shook his head, with what he'd loaded from the Fulcrum Intersect, he had pretty much everything known about torture techniques in his head. Keller was one of the most senior members of the Ring's American operation, because he'd been one of the original core group recruited to build the North American part of the organisation after his dishonourable discharge back in the '90s.

They couldn't afford not to get what was in his head, as it would help them make an impact against the Ring, and Chuck had to put aside his distaste for this to make sure that Keller wasn't allowed to die before he gave up everything that he knew.

While Chuck started, Casey and Sarah went out to put the bodies of the men outside in the shed, so that the animals wouldn't get to them before the cleaner crews were brought in. They went over the bodies and removed all weapons, devices, identification, anything that they had on them that may be of use, before they threw the bodies in the shed, tossing everything they took off them into the back of Casey's SUV. When they were done, they went back inside.

After about two and a half hours, Chuck stepped back and looked at the others. Keller was giving up what he knew, that wasn't the problem, the problem was that in that time, they'd barely scratched the surface, this bastard was a gold mine.

When he looked at them, Chuck said, "We're going to have to take him back, this will take days, maybe even weeks."

Casey nodded grimly, and stepping up to Keller, stuck a tranq dart into his carotid artery. They untied him from the table, secured his hands and feet and put him in the back of the SUV, then all of them went through everything in the cabin to make sure that they didn't leave anything of use behind.

* * *

Chuck was putting Keller through at least one or two interrogation sessions a day, but after two weeks the end still wasn't anywhere near in sight, as he'd determined out at the cabin that night, Keller was a gold mine of intel on the Ring and other nefarious activities.

It eventually took nearly a month to get everything that they thought that they were going to get out of Keller, and then they let Casey do what he'd been desperately wanting to do ever since he'd found out Keller's plans for Alex, process him appropriately.

As Chuck had been extracting what Keller knew, the others had been following up on the leads he supplied. One advantage that they had was that the other side had obviously presumed that Keller had been killed along with all his men (because none of them had ever turned up in any NSA black sites, and there was no hope of identifying any bodies that the cleaners processed), and they hadn't bothered clearing out the facilities and groups that Keller knew about. That meant that the team had a lot of live leads to follow up, and they were making quite a bit of headway.

* * *

The week after they finished with Keller, even though none of them had managed to track down any serious intel on what was being planned, they found out exactly what it was about. The other side had apparently decided that the team was causing too much disruption to their plans, and they couldn't have them doing that at this critical juncture, so they'd scraped together most of their heavy hitters, senators on oversight committees, a few three and four star Generals and senior agency people, enough to ensure that they made up over two thirds of the 'committee', under the direction of a four star General, General Merriweather, to preside over a kangaroo court to put the entire team behind bars.

The Ring, or whoever it was was running with this, had played their cards well, they arranged for Chuck, Sarah, Casey and Carina to come to a given room for the briefing meeting, but when they entered, it was effectively a courtroom, and they were held at gunpoint as they were disarmed and relieved of their phones.

At the same time, an military escort burst into Aunt D's office and took her straight from there to the 'court room' without any chance of her contacting anyone. This was apparently an attempt at an end run around the DNI, and therefore the President, to disappear the team (including Aunt D), before anyone could do anything about them.

What the Ring didn't realise, of course, was that her Aide De-camp was onto the DNI's private line as soon as they were out of the office, or that Bry, Mary, Zondra, Mike, Mei-Ling, Vinnie, Rick, Sydney, Alex and Vicky were in town with their support team to back them up, and Ellie, Emma, Jeff, Anna, Pete, Lucas, Leslie and Stephen were there to follow the trails and determine how to get them out. As soon as the General's assistant called the DNI, he called Ellie and the tech team leapt into action to try and find them (Chuck, and the others had immediately been suspicious when the known team had been called to D.C. for a briefing and airlifted the rest in ahead of them).

Inside the 'court room', the proceedings were going as expected for a kangaroo court, they were given no opportunities to present any evidence to refute any of the charges against them or answer any questions properly. The Ring also trotted out Kieran Ryker as the special agent who'd supposedly been investigating the group for years now to unsettle them.

Ryker kept hanging around their table quietly goading Sarah about how that he'd be getting that kid soon and how he'd be dealing with anyone who got in his way, but he wasn't making them worried and unsettled, he was giving them something to focus their anger on, big mistake!

The issue of what Chuck did to the one who was describing how he wanted to do Sarah after the Trace Cell mission and numerous other items like psychiatric evaluations on them from CIA psychiatrists that none of them had ever seen came up as 'evidence' of how unstable Chuck was, citing his 'unprovoked' attack of the CIA official, as was Carina's outburst in that meeting.

The 'court' also showed doctored footage of what Sarah did to Shaw when she killed him and the events leading up to it (including how Chuck and the others blew the doors in while she was already dealing with Shaw), as well as medical reports and doctored footage to make it look like Chuck, Sarah and Casey had been instrumental in Larkin's death, after they'd attacked him previously. The very fact that they had footage from within that Ring building was the final proof that it was the Ring that was behind this, and Chuck kicked himself, as he should have put two and two together the moment he saw Merriweather there.

The fabricated or doctored evidence was laying it on pretty thick that all four of them were involved in unjustified deaths and attacks in many instances, and they were also accusing Aunt D of fabricating evidence to cover up their other "killing sprees" and activities to keep her team out of prison and build her empire.

The other members of the committee who'd been brought into make up the numbers needed (who had actually been told was merely an informal hearing) kept asking to see the other evidence that the General and the team were talking about, but were being overruled every time, and they weren't allowed to stand down and leave once the proceedings had started.

* * *

The outcome of the 'hearing' was a foregone conclusion, pretty much from the start, so at the end it was no surprise to see any dissenters on the committee being overruled, and they were all sent away to be locked up pending sentencing. The problem at that point was that the General was taken somewhere separate from the others, as the Ring deemed her to be the one who needed to be hidden from the DNI and the authorities, to the Ring Chuck and the others were a nuisance, but not a problem now that they had them locked up.

Aunt D's separation from the others unfortunately meant that when Jeff, Anna and co engineered a brief power outage as Chuck, Sarah, Casey and Carina were being escorted to their cells, she was still trapped elsewhere. As soon as the lights went out, Chuck, Casey and Carina had no trouble overpowering their guards and taking off. They followed the trail of flashing lights directing them to their exit point, ducking into rooms that they opened or indicated at the times when the search parties were getting close to them.

When they got out of the CIA facility, Bry, Zondra, Mei and Vinnie were there, waiting in one of their armoured electric vans. As soon as they'd hopped in and the transport was closed up, they just rolled away silently and blended with the traffic, and as far as the CIA could see, they'd effectively disappeared as soon as they left the building.

They went back to the data centre they were using to collect the CIA and NSA's backup archives via a circuitous route, and the others were waiting for them there. Once the Casey and Carina had been reunited with Ellie and Leslie, Chuck took over the search for Aunt D, because as good as the others were, this was the Piranha's world. Chuck had identified her location and taken control of the security system so that they could communicate with her inside half an hour (the CIA had been the first place to look).

That was where the tide turned on this disaster, because with Acting DCIA's ego, he hadn't been able to resist boasting to Aunt D about what they were going to do. What she managed to pass on to them before someone started heading for her cell again was that it appeared that she'd been the primary target for this operation, While they wanted to take Chuck and the team down, at the moment their priority was mainly to get them out of the way to prevent them from interfering with the Ring's main objective.

The reason for this was that Aunt D had been selected, as the senior inter agency representative of the the American intelligence communities, to chair the intelligence conference that was coming up in a couple of days in D.C. This conference would bring pretty much all the heads of the world's intelligence communities into one room. That was why the Ring's representatives had needed to get rid of her, so that they could replace her with their own man, the Acting DCIA of course, because they had plans for that conference.

The Ring already had people in positions of power throughout the world's intelligence communities, but their plan for this conference was to stage a coup that would wipe out any significant figures in the intelligence community that weren't bought and paid for, by way of a fake terrorist attack at the Conference. They planned to replace the ones they killed with their minions, and as a result, get control of the world's intelligence communities, the other major benefit for the Ring here was the way that this would discredit the United States in the eyes of the rest of the world, because of the prominent figures who were killed while under the protection of the United States. Once they controlled the intelligence communities, they could influence their governments enough to make them do whatever they wanted, and the truly frightening thing about their plan was that, unless someone managed to stop them here, they would most likely succeed.

The DCIA gave up something big in his boasting though, and Aunt D didn't think he realised that he'd let it slip. Apparently all of the Ring Elders were going to be there at the conference, because they were all highly placed in intelligence agencies in Europe and Eastern Europe, and they were determined to be there to witness the moment of victory of their plan for domination over the established order.

They kept the link open to keep an eye on Aunt D, so that they could intervene if any moves were made against her, and Chuck slipped out to fill the DNI in on what was happening and organise the other forces that they would need to ward this off. They had their support team to take out the fake terrorists and any other forces that the Ring could front, and he'd made the calls to organise them and ensure that they'd be here in time before he went to the DNI.

They couldn't show their hand, or their faces in public for that matter, at the moment so they needed the DNI to fill in the President and the people that they knew were part of the good guys. This was needed to ensure that when it all came down, they'd have the official support needed to stop the bloodbath which was bound to happen when legitimate forces reacted to the upcoming events.

The DNI also had to make arrangements for the arrest of the significant Ring figures who'd been outed by the Ring's kangaroo court, Keller's testimony and other things uncovered, people like the National Security Advisor, the Deputy Director of the NSA, the Secretary of Homeland Security, General Merriweather and the others that the Ring planted on the committee for that kangaroo court. The Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency would be arrested, but that had to be after Chuck and the others took him down.

To deal with the DCIA and the Elders, they had to be inside the Conference, so they went looking for suitable people to take over their invites from. It didn't take too long to identify one female and one male delegate who wouldn't be coming, but were close enough to Sarah and Chuck for them to use their identities. Chuck removed any records or indications that they weren't going, inserted travel details that would get them there in time from their official departure points, and amended the details on file so that they would have no problems with getting in, while Jeff and Anna ensured that Zondra, Mike, Carina, Mei-Ling, Vinnie, Sydney, Rick and Vicky could get in the back way without being detected.

Casey, Bry and Mary would be coming in the front doors with their Support Team as soon as they'd taken out the Ring forces who were pretending to be terrorists. It had been decided that they were the best known after Chuck with the military, and that well known faces would be better when dealing with the 'legitimate' security forces if they turned up early.

By the time the conference started, they had everything in place, and Sarah and Chuck had no trouble getting in with their assumed identities of the missing (Spanish and Russian respectively) representatives. It was easy for Sarah to distract the Acting DCIA with a little cleavage and fawning as she slipped a phone into his pocket, and then she stood watch for Chuck as he reconfigured the Audio Visual system to accept a feed from the DCIA's office.

When the DCIA took the stage, Sarah called him to tell him that they were on to him and that she knew that the Ring Elders were there, pushing his buttons until he sent warnings to the Elders so that they could get away. He also sent messages to other Ring agents to protect the Elders though, which wasn't part of their plan, but they could deal with that. After that, he asked where she was and she enjoyed taunting him a bit more, saying that she was in his office, of course, knowing that he'd come after her. The DCIA entered his office cautiously, but decided that he could afford to wait long enough to find out everything she knew before he killed her (as they knew he would, even though he'd never have a hope of besting Sarah). She played him like any other mark, feeding him all the right prompts and giving him the opportunity to boast about everything.

As soon as he'd given up enough intel to prove their case against him and the Ring though she interrupted him, hitting a few keys as she asked him if he was aware that her husband was a technical genius? As she turned the screen around to face him she thanked him, because without his help they might not have been able to convince everyone else of the truth, he only then realised what she'd done, what she'd made him do, and when he saw himself on the screen, he pulled his pistol to start firing madly at her. She ducked below the edge of the desk, working her way around to pop out around the corner of the desk and put a bullet into his shoulder to make him drop his pistol. That done, Sarah took out some of her anger at him by getting a few painful hits in quickly before she took him out with a kick to the head, tranqed him and secured him. She collected his pistol and magazines before taking out the phones and shorting out the locks to make sure that he'd remain there as she ran out to help the others.

By this stage, the Elders were trying to make their escape via the rear stairs, but they found Carina, Vinnie, Mick, Sydney, Rick and Vicky waiting for them at the exit. When the fifteen or so Ring agents that had gone with the Elders to protect them drew their weapons and started firing, they started going down rather quickly, as the team at the bottom was well entrenched, with assault rifles and body armour.

When they saw that, the Elders and the rear guard turned around to head back, but they found their way blocked by Zondra and Mei-Ling, Chuck and Sarah, who'd just arrived with a pistol in each hand (after putting on the ballistic vest that Zondra threw to her when she appeared at the door), so they were fighting on two fronts. All the guards were down within minutes, either dead or wounded.

The Elders and the guards were secured, then they all went out the way the others had come in. They were going to extract everything they knew, but it wasn't going to be done in any official capacity, because few of the methods that they'd be using would be even remotely legal.

That wasn't something that Chuck or the others were really comfortable with, but playing by the rules when the other side had nothing but disdain for those rules was just a recipe for failure, and failure in this had far reaching consequences that were too severe to take the risk.

The Acting DCIA was the exception, he was too visible to disappear that way so they left him on his office to be arrested, but they doubted that he would have been trusted with anything of any great value anyway, the Ring had always played a smart game, and smart people didn't trust idiots with their secrets.

* * *

They couldn't leave D.C. immediately, because they had to have meetings with the President, and the foreign dignitaries that they'd saved that day. Casey, Mary and Bry had collected the information and pictures of their targets from the Ring's "terrorists", and this intel, and the plan, had been shared with their targets. The President was in communication with the other heads of state in regard to the agency heads who were already bought by the Ring, and while most were cleaning house aggressively, the reaction that he got from some was a worry, in that the heads of state had obviously been part of the plot.

Chuck and the team were queried about the Elders and others who'd disappeared, but they didn't share anything about that other than that they'd been disposed of. The DNI was the only one questioning them who knew Chuck well enough to read his expression when he gave his response, and he knew that they would be going somewhere to be processed before they were actually disposed of.

Aunt D organised a few more C-37s to go with RI's G550 and carry the extras and their 'guests' back to Los Angeles, as they'd decided that, with the way things invariably went for them, leaving the vans they used in Washington, just in case, was probably a good idea. This also meant that they'd all get back to Los Angeles together, landing at Bob Hope Airport, rather than waiting for those coming on the C-17, which would land at Edwards.

It took them over a month to process the Elders, and the ones they'd taken with the Elders. Sarah, Casey, Mary, Bry, Mei-Ling and Vinnie also had the Fulcrum Torture database loaded now, so they shared the load of interrogating them with Chuck. As they extracted intel, it was passed on to the others to follow up, and within two months of the attempted coup, the Ring had been all but eradicated.

As far as they knew, all that was left out there at that stage was the dregs who'd run when the hammer came down. One thing was certain, not one of the major players that they'd identified was still holding any positions of authority, and that had caused a major shake-up of the intelligence communities (and governments) around the world, as well as the United States military and politics.


	21. New Order

**This chapter's mainly fluff.**

 **Usual disclaimers for the land of litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this isn't the real world, it's my world, welcome to my nightmare!**

The President and the DNI had elevated Director Preston to Acting DCIA as soon as his predecessor was arrested, and once the Ring clean-up operation was wound up to the powers that be's satisfaction, Chuck, Sarah, Ellie, Casey and the senior members of the team who'd come to D.C. to support them in stopping the Ring's plan were called back to attend his official induction into the position.

Of course, there were other reasons to call them to D.C. The primary reason was the fact that the powers that be had used the opportunity presented by the groundswell of relief and gratitude that arose from their thwarting a global plot like that to combine stages two and three of the plans for the realignment of the Special Projects Groups and push it through Congress while they had the support to do so, so they were once again told which uniforms to send over to be prepared for the ceremonies. The six of them who'd be running things (Chuck, Sarah, Ellie, Casey, Mary and Emma) were all being pushed to the final ranks of the three stage process, but their other ranks were being pushed up to just short of their primary ranks as well.

In this whole process, the only one taking a step back was Aunt D, as she was going from Director to Deputy Director for the Special Projects Group, and the Intersect Project, though she was staying as a Major General in the Air Force. Chuck was a Vice Admiral in the Navy and Colonel in the Air Force, Army and Marines, Sarah was a Major General in the Air Force, Captain in the Navy and Colonel in the Army and Marines, Ellie was a Rear Admiral in the Navy and Colonel in the Air Force, Army and Marines. Casey was a Brigadier General in the Marines, Commander in the Navy and Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force and Army, Emma was a Rear Admiral lower half in the Navy and Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force, Army and Marines, and Mary was a Brigadier General in the Army, Commander in the Navy and Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force and Marines. Bry was a Colonel in the Army and a Commander in the Navy, Zondra was a Colonel in the Air Force and a Commander in the Navy, Carina and Jeff were Captains in the Navy and Lieutenant Colonels in the Air Force, Mei-Ling was a Captain in the Navy and Lieutenant Colonel in the Army. Anna was a Commander in the Navy and a Major in the Marines, Vinnie was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army and a Major in the Marines and Mike was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marines already, but they also made him a Major in the Army.

With the expansion of the flag ranks in the group, they had to have a total revision of their aides, as well, Chuck now had an Army Major (Alex Forrest) and Air Force Captain (Vicky), Sarah shared Vicky with Chuck and also had an Army Lieutenant (Kim), Ellie had an Army Captain (Rick) and Marine Lieutenant (Alex McHugh), Casey shared Alex with Ellie, while Emma and Mary shared an Air Force Lieutenant (Abi) for their aide.

They also had to go through the ceremonies for a Presidential Unit Citation for the actual Special Projects Group (Navy and Marines, but the Army and Air Force people in the core team didn't mind), and there were also Presidential Medals of Freedom awarded and presented to the key people in the operation (awarded with distinction for Chuck, Sarah and Ellie, along with additional awards of the Defense Distinguished Service Medal and National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal for all three of them, and the National Intelligence Cross for Chuck and Sarah).

* * *

At the dinner after the ceremonies, the Secretary of Defense had a deja vu moment, because he once again had the Secretary of the Navy asking who these young girls were, and about the rest of the group that they were here for. As he had with BJ, he started with Lieutenant McHugh, as she was the first of the Flag Aides that came up, except she wasn't Admiral Carmichael's Flag Aide any more, she was Admiral Casey's, and General Casey's Aide De-Camp as well. He had a laugh as he pointed out that she was now the aide to both her father and step-mother, the rest hadn't changed, other than the fact that they were also Aide De-Camps now, and nor had the reaction to hearing that the two youngest girls were actually Admiral Carmichael's daughters.

Now that they'd leapfrogged to the third and final phase of General Beckman's plan, there was a bit of explaining to do about the empire that these people had created and had been running over the past fifteen years, and how it rated an O-9, three O-8 and three O-7 Flag officers, plus the fact that the five O-6 officers here were less than a third of the officers at that level in the group, and the three O-5 officers were only a small fraction of the officers at that level. The sub-flag officers who were here, were here because they were also part of the command structure of the group itself. The command structure of this group was spread across all of the services, with seven Navy, three Air Force, three Army and two Marines. He'd only had a glimpse of the true extent of this group himself, the units they commanded were spread across the country, across the world in fact if you factored in all of the myriad intelligence groups that were part of it, and many of their overseas stations also had a military component as well to support operations. He couldn't discuss much of what he'd been shown with the SECNAV, as he'd barely been cleared high enough to see most of it himself, but trying to explain the Group to him made Bob think about what he'd seen.

He did know that looking at personnel statistics didn't come close to showing the true measure of this group, on numbers alone, the amount of brass it carried may seem excessive, but that didn't take into account the fact that just about every single individual who was part of this group qualified as the elite in their fields, even these young lieutenants who were the flag officers' aides easily outclassed most personnel twice their age in ability, though considering who their parents were, that wasn't really surprising. For all that, even the make-up of the Group's personnel still didn't give an indication of the importance of the achievements of the group. The country, and sometimes the world, had been depending on them for most of the fifteen years that the Group had been operating, and most of that came down to the siblings who were the two senior Admirals of the Group, though General Carmichael had been changing the world by herself for over a decade, too.

Thinking about that, he reflected that he knew with utter certainty that these people had EARNED everything that they'd received, he'd been shown more than enough evidence to prove that! The Carmichaels were pretty much Captain America and Wonder Woman, no, that wasn't right, they were more like Captain America and Black Widow, with Admiral Casey as Wonder Woman…. He couldn't help smiling as he wondered to himself whether that made General Casey the Hulk? He shook his head at the thought and went back to enjoying the company of these remarkable people, the image of General Casey as a not so jolly green giant keeping the smile on his lips, oh yes, he could definitely see that!

* * *

Chuck, Sarah and Ellie also had sessions with the French, German and British ambassadors, because Chuck was awarded the French Legion of Honour (Commander _)_ and the German Gold Cross of Honour for Outstanding Deeds, and was made an Honorary Military Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. Sarah was awarded the French Legion of Honour (Commander) and the German Gold Cross of Honour for Outstanding Deeds, and was made an Honorary Military Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath. Ellie was also awarded the French Legion of Honour (Commander) and the German Silver Cross of Honour for Outstanding Deeds (as the criteria for the Gold Cross specified 'at the risk of one's life'), and was made an Honorary Military Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath. (It had been made clear to all concerned that while Chuck and Sarah were the ones in the thick of it, Ellie had been planning and commanding all the activities from outside.)

While other countries may not have agreed, those three countries had regarded their actions to be of great moment, considering that they had stopped the heads of their primary intelligence agencies being eliminated in order to replace them with the puppets of some international criminal organisation, and they were determined to show their gratitude.

The French and German ambassadors were more than a little surprised to be addressed in perfect French and German by Chuck, Sarah AND Ellie when they were talking with them. The American politicians and officials who were present were rather put out by this, because these discussions had been going too fast for them to follow, and politicians and officials never liked not knowing what was going on.

Their aggravation levels only increased when they asked what had been discussed, and Chuck had told them with a smile that they were swapping recipes. They couldn't do anything to the heroes of the hour, so they had to try to swallow their pride and reactions to that. This was escalated when the British Ambassador had smiled charmingly and then had his own conversations with the heroes of the hour in fluent French, as he'd been watching the reactions to the previous discussions, and he was having a great time watching the politicians and officials just about pop a blood vessel as they fought to keep quiet about it.

The actual discussions they were having hadn't been about anything that concerned the government at all though, they were primarily around how three people of such apparent youth could have won the medals and ranks that they had (because the powers that be had insisted that they attend the award ceremonies in full uniform), but as usual they'd just waved the matter off as just being in the right place at the right time, or rather, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They'd also called over John, Lottie and Charlie to introduce them to the Ambassadors, by this stage they weren't so surprised by their mastery of their languages, not even in the girls.

When the ceremonies were finally done, they all piled back into their G550 and the C-37 Aunt D had organised for them and headed back to L.A. to catch up on what they'd missed doing while much of the core team was tied up in D.C. playing nice with the politicians. They'd been stuck in D.C. for a few days this trip, but the matter of the Ring should be finished now, which hopefully meant that they could go back to working through the rest of the issues in front of them without having the worry of dealing with enemies like that hanging over their heads all the time.

As a result of the changed status of most of the core group, they now had a row of six desks outside their offices, on both Level 1 and level 2, as their Flag Aides or Aide De-Camps were also their assistants in PS&T, on Level 2 they were the Flag Officers and their Aides, on Level 1 it was management and their assistants.

* * *

Once Mary and Dr Dreyfus were comfortable that she could handle the issues that came up for her after the PI unlocked the memories that she'd thought she'd buried, Dr Dreyfus made a proposition to the team. Dr Dreyfus was pretty much dedicated to working with Stefan and others from the team now, so what he proposed was for him to refer what few other clients he had to someone else, get rid of his house in Washington, and he and Stefan come to Los Angeles. The question wasn't so much debated so much as Chuck looked around and got a nod from everyone, so he agreed on the spot, and within a week a much improved Stefan and a very good psychiatrist moved into Quixote House and took their proper places in the team.

With Dr Dreyfus on-site and ready to look after them, Carina, Zondra and Leslie went ahead and loaded the PI. The girls had the expected issues when all the memories of what had been done to them were unlocked, but they were soon handling them OK with a little help from Dr Dreyfus. With each successful load of the PI, there were more of their people stepping forward wanting to load it, and by the time they went to D.C. for the promotion and induction ceremonies, the entire core team, their 'FBI' support team, Aunt D, Uncle Roan, Dr Dreyfus, Lottie and Charlie had all loaded it, and others in their groups were loading it as well.

One group especially jumped at the chance, Casey's 'Combat Logistics and Planning' Group, this was made up of thirty men who'd been among the very best of the United States' special ops combatants before they were forced from active duty due to injuries that they'd received in combat. Most of them were amputees, and they'd never be cleared for combat again, but they'd been fighting being pensioned off for medical reasons. The USSOCOM Commander had talked to Chuck back when they first created their military operations groups about whether they might be able to find a place for these men, after all they'd given in the service of their country, and it had grown from there.

The thirty men currently in the group ranged from Sergeant, up to Commander in rank, and they had over four hundred years of combat experience in all types of terrain and conditions, including urban combat, all over the world between them. This meant that they could explain the requirements and best strategy for pretty much any type of engagement faster than just about anyone else, and they had enough experience in military intelligence matters to be of considerable assistance to Emma's Analysis groups as well. On top of everything else, these men had been some of the best warriors the United States had, and they'd kept up their weapons proficiencies, so they also made up the last line of defence for the Special Projects Group and Quixote House, the 'Home Guard' as it were, and if anyone ever managed to breach the building, they would be in for a nasty surprise!

Another thing they'd discovered about the PI was that the host's genetic make-up determined how much benefit they'd get from the the PI. Everyone got benefits from the repair functions and the core functions of the PI, but there seemed some sort of correlation between those with eidetic memory and getting more notable mental and physical enhancements, such as Chuck had, Mary, Ellie, Sarah and Carina also exhibited this, as did about half a dozen of the others, all of whom had eidetic memories as well. This was something that they couldn't resist investigating, so Ellie took the samples necessary to run full DNA tests on everyone who exhibited this (along with other control subjects, such as Stefan, to see what differences showed up), and they found that the one genetic marker that everyone exhibiting the additional effects of the PI shared appeared to relate to Norse bloodlines, and specifically Berserkers.

There was very limited test data recorded for Berserkers, as the incidence of 'true' Berserkers in recent times was quite rare and no formal studies had been done on them, but the stories about them appeared to relate to a hyper sensitivity to adrenalin, in small doses it increased the strength, speed, co-ordination and mental acuity, so that they became supermen (or women), and their neural pathways appeared to differ from 'normal' people as well (at least the people in their test group did, anyway), in large doses (equating to instances where 'normal' people perform acts of extreme strength etc due to adrenalin), the Berserkers appeared to be out of control, far stronger and faster than anyone else could possibly be, not reacting to injures and not ruled by rational thought while in that state. The full effects of the 'extreme' state was obviously not the target for the Intersect, but rather the 'enhanced' state, as these capabilities, along with the different neural pathways, enabled a capability to host and utilise the Intersect in a way that 'normal' people couldn't achieve.

* * *

When this came out, Chuck, Sarah, Ellie and Mary sat down to talk with Tiffany and Monica, because Lottie and Charlie also had eidetic memories. When Tiffany saw the benefits that they'd gotten from the PI, she readily agreed to the DNA testing, and she and Monica were tested as well. The results for Lottie and Charlie showed the same genetic markers as Chuck and the others, and after another talk with Tiffany, and them, they loaded the PI. The database was intentionally kept pretty bare for the girls, they were given extra martial arts and other skills to protect themselves, and that was most of it, as they wanted them to learn things through the normal processes because that would be better for them. Chuck explained and demonstrated to them how to access the additional fighting skills etc in case they ever needed them to defend themselves. Like Alex had been, they were already quite proficient in a wide array of martial arts and with many weapons (and had their pilot's licenses), but what they'd loaded into the PI database for them would mean that they should be able to fight just about anyone off.

It wasn't necessary to remind them never to let anyone else know about this, but he did. Lottie rolled her eyes at him "Daaadddd, you and Uncle John (John and Ellie were the girls' godparents, they had been since Tiffany and Monica moved back to town and introduced them to Chuck them so that they could get to know their father) have been telling us that since we were little girls, do you really think we don't get it yet?"

Charlie didn't say anything, she just shook her head at him in resignation, and he had to pull them into his arms and kiss them, they reminded him so much of Ellie when they did this "Yes, but you know the process, and your Dad, I'll always remind you of these things."

After loading the PI while they were still developing, the girls went through another growth spurt, shooting up another few inches and developing a bit more in a matter of months, so that they were an inch taller than Sarah now and were quite eye catching beauties, which made Chuck all the more happy that they had the extras available in the PI to protect themselves with. He wasn't sure whether the attention that they were getting from men and boys was harder on him or John though, as he'd had to stop John attacking more than one idiot over the inappropriate attention they were paying the girls. The PI had also further developed their already formidable intellects, guaranteeing that they'd be starting at Caltech when they turned sixteen next year, because they were almost locked in already. (That was the source of quite a bit of good natured bickering between Chuck, and Tiffany and Ellie, the fact that they'd both followed their father into technology fields, rather than following their mother into biochemistry. The family had arranged for financial and other assistance to get Tiffany into UCLA to study biochemistry, because even with the disadvantages of home schooling, she'd had the grades to get in.)

* * *

A few months after the girls loaded the PI, they went to a red carpet premier for a new teen movie with Chuck and Sarah. As they headed up the red carpet, their excitement about the movie and the actor they were crushing on just emphasised their vivacious beauty, and at five foot ten, developed the way they were and with their hair and makeup done, they certainly didn't LOOK like the sweet and innocent, barely fifteen year old girls they were. They were actually taking attention away from Sarah, which was quite unusual at these events, and Chuck was regretting giving in and letting them wear those elegant but short little black dresses and tall heels, they looked utterly stunning, but what he saw in the eyes of most of the men looking at them was just about enough to make him go on a rampage.

Just then, it got even worse, as he caught sight of Grimes and Patel out of the corner of his eye and tried to hurry into the cinema before they saw them. Fat chance of that, they'd become obsessed with Sarah in the few days before he'd managed to get away from the Buy More, and sure enough, Grimes started calling out "Chuck! Hey Chuck! Over here buddy!" Unfortunately, with the sharper hearing that the PI had given him, he could also hear what they were saying to each other, he gritted his teeth and tried to hurry more when he heard Grimes say "Man! Look at how fucking hot Sarah is in that dress! I SO wish I could get onto that just once!" but it was Patel's response to that which made him freeze.

"Forget about Blondie Morgan! Look at THOSE two! Man, what I'd do to get a taste of THAT!"

"Oh yeah, they're so fucking hot, twins! Those legs, those bodies, oh man I want that! And there's one for each of us! It's party time Lester!"

Sarah didn't need to look in Chuck's eyes to see his driving need to kill these fucking perverts, talking about what they wanted to do to his little girls like that, because she'd also heard what they'd said and was feeling it as well, they were her daughters too now! She had to get Chuck out this situation before he exploded though, she knew that this would be spread across the front pages by tomorrow, but she had to break him out of the killing rage that gripped him at the moment. She stretched up on tiptoe and latched onto him with a searing kiss, but for all that she was the very centre of his existence 99.99% of the time, it took nearly a minute for that kiss to get through to him. Sarah finally felt him start to relax as he came back to her, but kept it up for another thirty seconds or so to get him down from the brink before she whispered into his mouth "Lets get our girls inside where they're safe!"

Chuck came back with a sweet kiss and whispered "Yes! Love you" back. At that, Sarah broke off, and blushing bright red on cue, grabbed his hand to hurry towards the entrance of the cinema. She grabbed Charlie by the hand as Chuck did the same with Lottie, and they all rushed into the cinema. The girls didn't argue, as they'd stopped to watch that kiss like everyone else, and they'd seen that while the embarrassment their parents were showing was faked, their underlying rage was very real. Inside, Charlie asked in a whisper what was going on, but Sarah whispered back "I'll tell you in a minute Sweetie, but I have to get a couple of sick bastards taken down first!"

She keyed her mic "Anna! I need you to get into those bastards' phones and insert voyeur pictures of young girls, if you can grab something from tonight and include that, all the better! Jeff, I need you to get into the police systems and insert records for nasty child pornography and child molestation for both of them, with a court order that they have to keep well away from any events or locations involving under age girls, then send an alert with their pictures to all the police here that they've been spotted here to get them picked up!"

"Sarah! Who the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh, sorry, Chuck and I are pretty worked up at the moment, it's Grimes and Patel, they're here, and they're talking about what they want to do with our girls."

"WHAT?"

When she heard Casey bellow, she kicked herself, he'd kill anyone thinking that way about the girls even quicker than they would "John, stop! We need those bastards arrested and sent to prison, not us! If Anna and Jeff can get this started now, Chuck can plant enough evidence to get them sent away for a long time, or even better, hopefully get them killed in prison!"

Casey growled, but Anna said "OK, the Bear's back on his leash, sorta, Zondra, can you find these two and get a relay close enough to them for me to break into their phones with bluetooth?" (She'd obviously brought up pictures of the two on screen) "Even if I trusted Casey not to kill them, which I don't! They might recognise him from when he busted them trying to film Ellie in her bedroom."

"On it!"

* * *

With the others working on the problem, Sarah turned to Chuck to see how he was handling this now, he'd settled down a little, and he was hugging Lottie as he tried to control himself, which was pretty much what she was doing with Charlie. She kissed Charlie on the cheek, and started talking quietly to the two of them "There are a couple of perverts out there who used to work with your father, and you two caught their eye. They started talking about what they'd like to do with you and your father went into a rage, I wasn't far behind but that was what the kiss was about, it was the only thing I could think of to get through to him."

Lottie looked distraught "We shouldn't have come here dressed like this, I'm sorry Mama…."

"Lottie, NO! You two haven't done anything wrong! You both look so beautiful, it's not your fault what sick perverts think when they look at you, or any other woman's. Don't worry Sweetie, we're going to deal with those sick little fucks!"

It was only when the girls, and Chuck, grinned at what she'd said that she replayed it in her head, this time the blush WAS genuine "I shouldn't have said that, and I better not hear either of you saying it either! It's just, I was upset, sorry."

The girls laughed and Charlie kissed her on the cheek, and with that they went in to take their seats before anything else could happen.

* * *

Outside, Jeff and Anna were using the equipment they had in the van to locate incriminating voyeur pictures of young girls, and scan any bluetooth, WiFi or cell signals they could find in hope of picking up some more from this event. They managed to grab a few up the skirts and down the tops of obviously young girls getting out of cars at this event, which should do the job nicely. As they got the images, they resized and reformatted them to look like camera phone pics. Jeff got into the police system and created records for a couple of nasty child molesters and child pornographers, adding some of the images that Anna wasn't getting ready to insert into their phones to strengthen the case against them. He also added a record for a court order prohibiting them from going anywhere near places where young girls would be, like this event, and sent the alert to the police stationed near the event.

As soon as Zondra got close enough to the pair for Anna to connect with bluetooth, she hacked into their phones and loaded the images, then reorganised the files to show a logical progression, the images that she'd inserted inter-spaced with the similar pictures already on their phones. She did remove the pictures they'd taken of Lottie and Charlie, and of Sarah kissing Chuck with them in the picture, from both their phones while she was doing that.

The police were on the ball that night, because Zondra had to urgently ask Anna whether she was done so she could get away from the pair before the cops arrived to take them down, hard! The cops who took them down obviously considered perverts who preyed on young girls like that disgusting, because it was at the very least bordering on excessive force when they did so, not that Zondra or those watching in the van objected, at all. Anna called through that the pair had been arrested, and Chuck and Sarah smiled at each other in relief, they would have shared at kiss at that, except the girls were sitting between them.

* * *

When they got home, Chuck got on the computer and set up the rest of the evidence on the pair, determined that Lottie and Charlie and any other girls who caught their eye would be kept safe from them. While he was doing that he called Anna "Was it you or Jeff who hacked into my profile to set that as my background?"

"A bit of both, actually."

"Who did you get it from?"

"Patel, the sleazebag either has a good eye or he lucked out, but it was actually a lovely image of the four of you, and nothing sums up you and Sarah better than a picture of you locked in a passionate embrace."

He ignored that last "Yeah, I think I'll keep it, thanks again for your help tonight Anna."

"Chuck, you know we'll all do anything to protect the girls! We're family!"

"I know, and that makes me appreciate it all the more, night."

"Night Chuck."

Before he went to bed, he had a look around the gossip sites, confirming what they'd expected, that kiss was going to be front page news for a few days at least, unless something big came along. Strangely enough though, the image that Anna removed from Patel's phone was better than any of the ones he found when he searched the Net.

* * *

Now that his father was firing on all cylinders, probably for the first time, he came to Chuck to beg for his help in removing the Agent X Intersect from Alexei Volkoff, so that they could get their friend Hartley Winterbottom back. Though he'd already heard the story from Auntie Di, Uncle Bry, Auntie Em and Mom, Chuck didn't interrupt him when his father told it again, and his father DID have something else to tell him, he'd been trying to come up with a way to remove the Agent X Intersect from Hartley for nearly twenty years now, but he'd never managed to come up with anything viable. More importantly, he still had a copy of the original corrupted code that had been loaded into Hartley. He also had the videos of how he'd reacted with he was loaded with it for the first demonstration before Chuck was born, and how he'd reacted when the hacked version was loaded into him when Chuck was almost nine.

Chuck took the code to Jeff, as their reverse engineering guru, and once Jeff had extracted the code, he and Leslie used the code that he'd provided to came up with a program that the simulations showed was almost certain to extract it properly, but that just left them with a bigger problem, how the hell were they supposed to get to him to execute the extraction program? Alexei Volkoff was a vicious, paranoid megalomaniac with more power and bigger armies than most of the world's smaller countries, there was no way for them to just walk in and put the Intersect glasses on him.

Chuck promised to try and find a way to do this, but they had a heavy workload, so it was going to be a long process, as Chuck could only look into this when he had some free time. This in itself showed how much his father had improved though, because instead of throwing a tantrum like he always had before, he said that he understood and thanked him for making the effort. He WAS trying to make up for his behaviour to Chuck and Ellie, now that he finally realised what he'd been doing to them for fifteen years. Dr Dreyfus had actually told them and Mary that the guilt he felt over that was one of his biggest problems now.

* * *

Since they'd officially taken over the Special Projects Groups, the issue of their meetings in D.C. had become more of a problem, because they were in the air much of the time now. As an interim measure, three F-15Es were allocated to them and they were kept hangared with their G550 in the RI hangar at Bob Hope Airport. Chuck, Sarah, Ellie and Casey used these to get to and from D.C. when there were only one or two of them going (well, up to six if they used all three jets), as this meant that they could attend meetings in D.C. without it taking all day, it still took half the day, but it made a difference.

They spread a cover story about that Roark Instruments was working on new avionics and imaging systems for the Air Force to explain the presence of the Air Force jets and crews in the RI Hangar at Bob Hope Airport, as well as the serious looking military personnel guarding the hangar. They were a little surprised that everyone accepted the story so readily, but they weren't complaining, as that made life so much easier.

Now that both Stefan and Leslie were back at full capacity, Stefan had started looking seriously into something that he'd been keeping an eye on for a few years now, the SonicStar, a concept for a near hypersonic large business jet. He made a large investment into Hypermach, the company who were working on this, to get the rights to try and play around with it for his own use, signing contracts agreeing that he couldn't sell any derivatives of the SonicStar technology that he worked on. He wanted to develop this into a flying platform that the team could use to alleviate the strain that all this travel was putting on them. He also approached Chuck and requested permission to bring ten OTHER eccentric geniuses into Novatech to work on it with them, and get the Piranha Intersect loaded into them as well.

In that year after he'd disappeared, Stefan had linked up with a network of brilliant but crazy inventors like himself, and they'd helped him stay off the grid until Mary, Di and Bry found him, using their personal knowledge of him and his habits to locate him. He'd stayed in contact with these people and worked with them in secret ever since, trusting them more than the family in his paranoia. The thing was, now that he was finally straightened out and thinking better than he'd ever been done his life, except perhaps when he was at MIT, and he observed the changes in Leslie as well to confirm what the Piranha Intersect and working with Dr Dreyfus could do for people like them, he was thinking about what those others in his core circle could do if they were straightened out in the same way. These ten men, with Leslie, were the most brilliant of the people he'd dealt with over the past fifteen years, well ever, actually, their specialities were spread across all the fields, and he was pretty sure that if they were all straightened out like he'd been, there was pretty much nothing that they wouldn't be able to do as a team.

Chuck, Sarah, Ellie, John, Mary, Emma, Di, Bry, Leslie and Dr Dreyfus sat down to discuss this, on one hand, there was the obvious risk in opening their operation to unknowns, but as Stefan said, if this worked out the way he was hoping, the opportunities that this presented were staggering. Chuck had looked into these men, and their backgrounds were clear of anything that was too worrying, their rampant paranoia aside. Leslie had reviewed what these people had created and talked to them when Stefan discussed the prospect with him, and he was prepared to attest to their genius, and on the basis of what Stefan and Leslie said, Dr Dreyfus was cautiously optimistic that he'd be able to help them straighten themselves out. That was enough for them to agree to this, so they gave Stefan the OK to bring them in.

They all took to the PI well, four even more so than the others as they shared the traits that Chuck and the others had, which allowed them to glean the most benefit from the PI, and within a month of working with Dr Dreyfus, they were all working on the projects, though they were still having sessions with him. Stefan was quickly proven right, this team, with him and Leslie, and Chuck too when he had the time, were doing incredible things, they had a quarter scale unmanned full function prototype flying within six months, and after a couple of months of testing with that, they'd started creating the airframe for the full scale model. In the development process, they'd made some fundamental changes from the original Hypermach concept, such as creating the airframe and skin from carbon fibre and using nanotube technology to strengthen the structure and components and address the heat issues. The weight reduction from this change, as well as their aerodynamic testing, subsequently led to other significant changes to the design.

As well as the near hypersonic transport platform, they were also working on all sorts of other things, body armour and NBC protection suits, advanced prosthetics and exoskeletons, surface transports, even an VTOL transport platform, the boys were busy. They were actually having the time of their lives, because hiding in the shadows, without funding as they'd been for decades, they'd always been severely limited in the scope of what they could look into, but now they had pretty much government level funding WITHOUT worrying about what the government might do with their creations, because the vast majority of what they were working on here would never be released to anyone outside of the 'family', this was all for the family's use, and that meant that the sky was the limit (literally, seeing as their major projects were aircraft).

It wasn't just 'the twelve' (as the family had taken to calling them) who were creating things though, because both Sarah and Ellie were pregnant. Ellie and John had fun teasing Sarah and Chuck about how they were panicking about why Sarah was feeling sick all the time when Sarah was 'just' pregnant, until Ellie started going through the same things a month later, it suddenly wasn't anywhere NEAR as amusing then! Sarah let Ellie off the hook to a large degree, but Chuck enjoyed laying it on pretty thick with his brother in law.


	22. Hello Old Friend

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this isn't real.**

It took Chuck over a month to get the time to put together the nucleus of a plan to get to Alexei Volkoff, there was a way to do it, they just had to dismantle his empire before they grabbed him. While most of the family thought he was crazy when he told them the plan, none of them questioned his ability to put it all together, they just couldn't conceive any way to get the resources they'd need to pull it off, but Sarah, Casey, Ellie and Aunt D had smiles on their faces as they waited to hear what he had in mind. Sarah had absolute faith in her husband, and she'd seen him pull off miracles in the time that they'd been together, and Ellie, Casey and Aunt D, well they'd seen him do the impossible far too many times over the last fifteen years or so to ever doubt that he could pull off anything he said he'd to.

Chuck started by going over what they already knew, that Volkoff Industries was a multi-billion dollar, multi-national concern that wielded enough power to make the Russian government, among others, do pretty much anything they wanted, which was why their facilities in eastern-Europe, South America and other regions were regarded as being untouchable. Carina and some of the others were looking a little impatient at this point, so Chuck smiled and turned to his Godfather, asking "Uncle Bry, how long have the CIA been after Volkoff Industries?"

Bry frowned "Ever since they, or at least Graham, created Volkoff in ninety, you know that!"

Chuck nodded and turned to Carina "When was your first Volkoff related mission Carina, and what did the DEA tell you about when he'd become a person of interest to them?"

She looked at him with narrowed eyes, starting to get an idea of where he was going with this "My first mission that related to him was in early ninety seven, he'd apparently been on their radar for over five years at that point."

Chuck looked at Zondra, and she nodded "Ninety eight, they'd been watching him for at least seven years by then."

He nodded thanks and asked Aunt D "How long have we been assisting European Agencies with Volkoff related intel Aunt D?"

"Since ninety three Chuck, pretty much from when you and Ellie started."

"Thank you" He looked at the others "That's how we're going to get the resources we'll need to take Volkoff Industries down. Just about every Intelligence Agency in the world has been after them for the last fifteen or sixteen years, we've even been working with parts of the FSB who have been trying to curtail their activities in Russia. We'll have to build the case and cultivate liaisons in all the relevant areas first, but when we have that together, we'll have the backing we need to take them down. Of course, we'll make that easier when the time comes, because we'll be ensuring that they suddenly go flat broke so they can't pay for their mercenary army, or anything else, just before we move in."

Most of the people listening were nodding now, because they were well aware that Chuck was quite capable of doing the other things he was talking about, so hearing that he had what sounded like a viable plan to get the forces they needed for the actual take down made them a lot more confident.

Chuck looked at his father "Dad, I know that you're already doing flight testing on the hypersonic and VTOL transports, what's the time frame on getting six or seven of the hypersonic transports and up to fifty of the VTOL transports operational?"

Stefan looked at Leslie "Six to eight?" Leslie nodded and he looked back at Chuck "Six to eight months."

Chuck nodded "That needs to be your team's priority, sorting out the issues and managing the construction of the working models." He looked at Casey "Can you assist them with the logistics to help them meet the target Casey? You haven't forgotten how to do that have you?"

Casey glared at him good naturedly "No Chuck, I haven't forgotten, I have worked a bit in the field since I got my degree!"

Chuck nodded with a smile and turned to the screen "We need more cyber analysts on the team, I'd like to recruit at least another dozen like the people we have, we also need enough agents and strike teams to significantly increase our off-shore points of presence for this Aunt D. The stations' size will depend on the location, but I'm thinking, on average, six agents and three fire teams for the strike teams over fifty more stations. I'll take DCS, NSA, FBI, CI, OSI, NCIS,* for the agents, basically anyone trained and competent who wasn't CIA, so long as we can confirm that they're clean and they'll be loyal to us. For the strike teams, I'll take anyone that we clear and our guys endorse."

Aunt D just looked at him "Is that all? Another three hundred agents, six hundred special ops personnel and fifty stations? I can't wait to see the case you come up with to get this through, and I'm going to love being there to see you present it, Director."

Chuck grinned at her "That sounds suspiciously like you're questioning your superior officer, General."

"Oh dear, does it? Well you'd be the authority on that, Admiral, given that you've been doing it for over fifteen years now! I'm sorry Admiral, I should have REQUESTED to be there when you present it, shouldn't I?"

* * *

Chuck opened his mouth to respond, but Sarah's low, terse "Chuck!" stopped him. He looked at his wife, and saw that she WAS actually pissed at him, so he shut up, and just nodded to Aunt D. After that they wound the discussion up, and seeing the way that Sarah stormed out, Chuck decided to give her a few minutes to herself before he tracked her down to see what she was upset about and sort it out. He headed up to the Penthouse to have a drink and calm down himself, as saying the wrong thing would just make things worse.

He got himself a drink and headed out into the roof garden, wandering down to the pool end, because he'd been thinking about the fact that they'd been too busy to come back and do all the clean-ups after the girls' weekend long (girls only at Dad's insistence) fifteenth birthday pool slash slumber party, he also made a note to call Uncle Roan and thank him for what he'd created down there, because once they'd emptied the bar of all the booze, the setup at the pool end was perfect for what the girls wanted. When he got there, though, someone had obviously done it, so he'd have to find out who it was and thank them.

There had only been two glitches over the whole party weekend, the time he'd had to tell Stacy to go back and put her top on when they brought up food for the horde (the girls had invited over thirty friends between them, not counting the dozen from the Special Projects families in the building) from the kitchen in the Dungeon (the primary kitchen in the Penthouse was better equipped, but that would have meant hauling everything over three hundred feet down to the pool end, whereas Roan had added suitable kitchen facilities in the Dungeon down that end for the very purpose of catering for pool parties, so it was much easier to prepare the food down there and bring it straight up in the elevator). He had been a little terse when he reminded Stacy (and the others) that letting them take their tops off ONLY applied to when they were sunbathing in the pool area! The other incident was when he told Amber that if he saw her with her bottoms off again he'd be calling her parents to tell them to come get her, and why!

Stacy had put her bikini top on and and came straight back to apologise, more like the sweet little girl he'd known since she was eight than the lithe, topless siren that he'd just snapped at, but he winced when she said "I'm sorry Mr Bartowski" (Tiffany and Monica had decided to give the girls their father's surname on their birth certificates, so they were Charlotte and Charlene Bartowski), as he'd never really liked the name.

Amber, on the other hand, was sullen for most of the rest of the weekend, one of Lottie's new cheerleader friends and seventeen, she wasn't used to being told off or not getting her own way. She wasn't in his good books anyway, because he'd heard her call Lottie a liar outright when she told her that he was her father, and she'd called Sarah a 'bimbo trophy wife' when she was told that she was Lottie's Step-Mom, Ellie was the only one that she wasn't rude about, unless you wanted to call demanding to know who the hottie was and how she could get a crack at him not being rude.

His dislike for the girl went far enough to ask Lottie not to invite her here again, and Lottie nodded "I'd pretty much decided that already Dad, I didn't realise how much of a bitch she was before, but wanting to crack onto you and calling Mama a bimbo was the last straw!" She pulled back to look at him "You're not angry at Stacy though?"

He shook his head with a smile "No, she just forgot, and we know how often she does that!" Lottie gave a little laugh at that "Oh yeah, we do!"

A few of the Special Projects family girls had slipped up and called Chuck and Ellie, Admiral and Sarah, General a few times, but none of the girls' other friends had seemed to pick up on it luckily, so it was OK.

He mused over this while he had his drink, then pulled his phone out to get Sarah's location. Seeing that she was in the workroom, he turned to look at the big mirror that was the smart glass wall, and as he did so, she made the wall transparent so that he could see her standing there, watching him. Chuck took that as a sign she was ready to talk and headed back.

* * *

She came into his arms when he came through the door from the garden, after he'd kissed her and held her for a while he asked "What did I do?"

Sarah shook her head "You didn't do anything really, it's just that this operation is potentially so dangerous, and these two (rubbing her belly) are throwing my emotions out of whack." She paused and looked up at him "OK, so I can blame you for that, you did THAT!"

He smiled "I don't seem to remember any complaints?" She slapped his chest "I didn't say I was complaining, I'd just saying that it was something you did."

Chuck nodded, turning serious. "On the operation, I've tried to structure it so that the risk is minimised, that's why I want to get extra resources on the team, and will be talking to agencies around the world to provide the manpower for the final assault." He could see that she was still worried, so he went on "This isn't just for what Dad wants Sarah, Volkoff Industries is dangerous, we'd all be safer if they weren't out there."

Sarah glared at him "Do you think I don't know that? It's just, we're starting a family and this operation IS fucking dangerous, no matter what you try to do to minimise that danger. That, and the fact that I have that wall over there (waving at Chuck's 'wall of fame') to remind me that my husband's a big damned hero means that I'm going to be worrying until it's all over!"

He said softly "I can't send John and everyone else into danger without doing my part…."

"I know! That's why I'm worried!"

They silently agreed that they'd just upset her more if they kept talking about this, so they left it there.

* * *

After the team meeting, Chuck had prepared the cases for the additional cyber analysts, agents and special ops personnel to be added to the Special Projects groups, using projections on existing workloads as justification, and flew to D.C. to present the case to the relevant committees and bodies. At least the trip was quicker now, as Stefan and the others had re-purposed the UAV flight prototype into a manned two seater, and it almost halved the F-15s' flight time to D.C. The only obvious identifier on the plane was the Sonic the Hedgehog image that someone from the twelve had added to the outside of both tail surfaces when they converted it, so they just called it 'Sonic'.

The full scale version of Sonic was almost ready for flight testing then, they were just finalising and testing the systems, and they'd started doing flight testing with the smallest version of the VTOL/STOL aircraft as well. The VTOL/STOL aircraft were loosely based on the concept of the Moller Skycar, using the hybrid engines, plasma emitters ideas etc they'd developed from the SonicStar concepts, along with the construction processes that they'd came up with for Sonic to make it into a viable flying platform.

Chuck and the tech team, which included over half of 'the twelve' when they weren't working on the airframe development, spent the next six months searching for and getting into any and all of Volkoff Industries and its affiliates' gateways and systems to extract any intel they could about Volkoff Industries. They also had their stations around the world doing physical incursions into the Volkoff facilities to gather more intel that they couldn't get on-line. When specialist teams were needed, they'd fly in on the HyperNovas (HN1-6, that was what Stefan and the others decided to call the full sized versions of Sonic) or VTOL Mediums or Heavies, do the job and fly back.

The twelve had pulled out all the stops on the VTOL/STOL platforms. As soon as they sorted out the issues with the initial test bed, they applied the amendments to the designs for the two primary airframe types and began constructing the initial airframes for testing. The initial six seater platform became the VTOL light, the next biggest platform, which was triple the size and had equivalent capacity to the C-27J Spartan, was designated the VTOL Medium, while the largest, which was triple the size again and had equivalent capacity (in volume anyway) to the C-5 Galaxy, was designated the VTOL Heavy. While they were working on the VTOL platforms, they'd set up the facility to build the other five HyperNovas that Chuck asked for, and as soon as they were completed, work started on the VTOL airframes.

By the time they'd collected enough Intel for Chuck to be comfortable to make the move on Volkoff Industries, they'd taken delivery of HN1-6, VL01-36, VM01-12 and VH1-6, and most of the core group was qualified on the four aircraft types, plus Sonic. Over half of the support team was at least qualified on the VL and VM platforms and some of them on the VHs and HNs as well. Chuck, Sarah, Ellie, Casey and Aunt D had been negotiating with Intelligence Agencies around the world to get the support they needed for the final attack on Volkoff Industries, but they had that support locked in now.

* * *

When Sarah saw Chuck's plan for the strike to hit Volkoff's headquarters in Moscow and the other Eastern European sites, she shivered. That was of course something that Chuck couldn't miss, so he asked what was wrong? She tapped the screen that showed his proposed staging area in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and said "That makes me actually glad that these two are preventing me coming from along on this mission! I had to hide out there for nearly three days, and it was REALLY creepy! It was back in two thousand and five, Graham had just made me Larkin's partner and I was on one of my side missions. I was set up and sold out by the CIA's local Station Chief, who I'd been sent in to investigate, in the middle of a mission in the Ukraine. I only just managed to get out of the dacha of the warlord who was supposedly my target intact, but the Station Chief had also burned me to try and ensure that I didn't get out of the Ukraine with the intel I had on him. That meant that I couldn't get onto any commercial transports or across any of the borders back into a safe zone, because he'd made sure that they were all on high alert, looking for me, the bastard had been very thorough."

She drew a breath, as the memory of the experience was getting to her, and Chuck drew her into his arms. "An analyst on the European desk who that I'd worked with when I was with the CATs heard what was going on, and she sent me a text with the contact details for a black market transporter that she somehow knew about. I managed get to a town a ways away from the Warlord's in the back of a farm truck and broke into a house while the people were away to use their phone. I got onto Carla, the woman who organised things for him, but it took a few hours for them to agree that they'd take on the job, get confirmation of the funds transfer to pay for the extraction, and sort out all the rest of the details. The big problem with the arrangements was that it was going to take him at least three days to organise everything and get into the Ukraine to pick me up, and there was no way that I could evade everyone looking for me if I was staying in hotels. I couldn't risk staying at that house any longer that I had to either, so we agreed that the safest course would be for me to hide out in the Exclusion Zone and wait for him there. I stole some clothes, food, water etc and managed to stow away on another truck that ended up going straight past the Exclusion Zone, so it only took me half a day to get there."

"The first night, just as I was entering the Exclusion Zone, I got treed by something, I didn't really get a good look at it in the dark, but it was big, and mean, and it DIDN'T look normal. I think it might have been a boar of some kind, going the score marks I saw that it had left on the trunk of the tree when I came down in the morning, but they were over four feet off the ground! As soon as I got down, I ran all the way to Pripyat and holed up in an apartment at the top of the building, I'm pretty sure I saw at least one pack of wolves on the way there, too. Once I was in the apartment, I didn't leave again until the transporter arrived. I ate and drank nothing but the biscuits, cold tinned food and bottled water I'd brought with me, and didn't put any lights on at night. Mind you, I couldn't manage to find any more than one torch without any spare batteries, so I knew I'd have to save that for when I needed it anyway. I could hear things roaming around inside the building, so I barricaded the door of the apartment, and I thought I saw more strange things outside over the next two nights too, but that may have just been my imagination playing tricks on me."

"By the time the transporter finally turned up about two and a half days later, I was so spooked that I ran straight down and kissed him." At the look that fleetingly crossed over Chuck's face, she shook her head "I only kissed him Chuck! I wasn't that far gone, and Frank wasn't the type to take advantage of me, given the state I was in, either. We left there straight away, and he got me out through Belarus to Lithuania, where I got onto the first plane I could back to the States. When I saw Graham, I refused to go back to Europe again until that Station Chief had been taken down, but most of the missions I was being sent on with Larkin at that point were in South America anyway. I'm sure you can guess how much sympathy I got from Graham about being betrayed and burned in the middle of the Ukraine and only getting out by the skin of my teeth like that? Yeah, two days after I got to Langley I was back in Columbia on another mission. Anyway, that place was so fucking creepy that I'll be glad to be sit this one out!"

* * *

Chuck held her and kissed her, she could feel his tension as he was trying to think of a way to tell her about what he had to do, so she let him off the hook. "It's alright Chuck, I understand why it has to be you who has to go in with the team to extract Volkoff, because there's no way of getting control of their security systems remotely, and they need the Piranha there because it's likely to be tricky, being Volkoff's lair itself. I don't LIKE it, but I understand it. Just remember though, if you do anything stupid and get yourself killed, I'll find you and kick your arse!"

Chuck snorted and kissed her again "Oh, I don't doubt that for a minute my love!" He turned serious again "I AM doing everything I can to make sure that I come back to you, that we all come back."

She tried to get as close to him as she could, burying her face in his shirt so he had to strain to hear her "I know you are, I'm just afraid, this was what I've been afraid of from the start. You know that I only started living when I found you again, and with these two arriving soon, I NEED my husband, and they need their father!"

He kissed her on the top of her head, then her lips, then got down on his knees to kiss her belly and start talking to their children. "Hey guys, it's Dad here, I know you're planning on coming out soon, and we can't wait to see you, but here's the thing, next week I've got to go away for a couple of days, so I'd really appreciate it if you can wait until I get back so I can be here to greet you. Your Nana, Auntie Ellie and your sisters will here with Mama, but I, your Grandma and Uncle John have to go do this job, so please wait for me to come back."

Sarah pulled him up with a laugh and kissed him "You are such a dork! But I love you, and so will they. OK, tell me your brilliant plan about how you're going to do this to stop me worrying so much."

Chuck sat down and pulled her into his lap, rubbing her belly as he started going through the mission details that he'd be part of. "OK, as I said, we're using the Exclusion Zone as the staging area because it's easier to hide there, no-one looks at it much, and the readings from there are still variable. We're taking VM01 in, and we'll have a hundred and fifty FSB Spetsnarz troops to storm the facility. Once the FSB troops have started their assault and are drawing the attention of Volkoff's security forces, we'll take out any guards who may be on the roof and bring VM01 in. Mom, Uncle Bry, Mike, Vinnie and I will go in with six of the seven fire teams from our support team…."

Sarah interrupted with "Who'll be with you?" nodding when he gave her the names (as they were the very pick of the team) and indicating for him to go on.

"I'll take out the security controls on the door up there, and then it'll be a straight run to Volkoff's office for Mom and I and two fire teams, because it's on the top floor. We'll breach his office, hit him with one of those modified twilight darts that just lock out the motor controls, and take out any guards he may have in there with him. I'll be connecting more combination remote access/wipe devices into the networks in his office as a failsafe for the ones we've connected anywhere we could on the way in and we'll run the Agent X extraction program on him in his office, just in case anything stops us extracting him, then Tommy will pick him up in a fireman's carry and get him out of there. If anything happens to Tommy, Bubba will take over carrying him. When we're back on the roof, one fire team will stay to secure the roof while the rest of us pile into VM01 and get the hell out of there."

"Uncle Bry, Mike, Vinnie and the four fire teams they have with them will have the job of collecting what intel and computer storage they can find on the top couple of floors of the building, because most of the higher ranked people and secure facilities are up there. Then they'll get back to the roof with whatever they found to wait for VM01 to come back to pick them up, once they get back onto the roof, they'll seal the door and if necessary hold off anyone who comes at them until VM01 gets back to pick them up."

"The fire team who are left with VM01 will be setting up the satellite relay devices on the roof while we're inside, and once they're working, the remote access devices should be enough to let Anna, or someone on the tech team, take over the security systems and crash them to let the FSB troops in so they can get control of the facility, I expect that they'll have that done before we get back to the roof. As soon as the security systems are down, we'll start getting into their computer systems and extracting whatever we may want on the systems. Mom and I will transfer from VM01 to HN1 at the airfield here (showing a point on the map) just outside of Moscow with Volkoff and one of the fire teams, then VM01 will go back for the others. We'll try to keep Volkoff sedated until we can get him back here and under Doctor Dreyfus's care. On the flight back, I'll be working on the Volkoff systems, but as soon as I'm back here, I'll be taking time out to show my wife how much I missed her. So, was the plan solid enough to make you feel any better?"

"Well, that last bit sounded good, OK it all did, but you know as well as I do that there are always too many fucking variables, no matter how good your planning is! I'll be worrying until you walk in that door and put your arms around me, you know that."

He kissed her gently "Yeah, I do, but you have my word that I'll be doing everything possible to get back to the three of you in one piece, and bring their Grandmother back the same way."

* * *

Chuck had a hell of a lot of work to do in that last week. Over the past few years, they'd established a process which quite effectively destabilised organisations like Volkoff's, to soften them up just before they hit them, this was accomplished by making their money disappear. As far as the rest of the world knew, what they did was transfer the money to, nowhere, basically, but that wasn't quite accurate.

Between Volkoff Industries and Alexei Volkoff himself, they held roughly $35 Billion in liquid funds, which represented about 1/5 of their total value. On top of this, Chuck had also inserted computer records to kick off the process to borrow another $110 billion from banks around the world, using the properties that Volkoff Industries relied on for its income and Volkoff Industies' and Alexei's most valuable assets as security for those loans. While these loans were being processed, the tech team started draining away all of Volkoff Industries' liquid assets.

As far as people would be able to tell if they tried to trace where the money went, it just disappeared into the aether, as the furthest anyone would be able trace it was one or two hops from Volkoff's banks before it disappeared. What was actually happening though was that the funds were being transferred out of the Volkoff accounts in a couple of million separate transactions, and then they were bounced around the world like the ball in a pinball machine before finally ending up in tens of thousands of accounts in off-shore tax havens. While this was happening, the tech team was busy hacking into most of the intermediary banks' systems to erase the records from the transaction logs immediately after the transactions went through, thereby rendering it impossible to follow the trail.

The process to remove all of Volkoff Industries and Alexei Volkoff's liquid assets, including the loan funds, was completed a few hours before the exercise to take down all their major facilities commenced. That meant that, by the time the final attacks actually started, most of the serious players in Volkoff Industries knew that all the company's money had disappeared, and word was quickly spreading through the rank and file, especially the mercenary armies that made up the vast majority of the Volkoff security forces. They were also spreading messages about this throughout the organisation to speed up the spread of the word that something was seriously wrong in Volkoff Industries. People were getting messages which appeared to be from people they knew, saying that Volkoff Industries was broke and they wouldn't be paid.

This was something that they were banking on, because your average mercenary won't fight unless they're being paid, so the expectation was that, as soon as they found out the money was gone, many (hopefully most) of them would grab what they could and run, and the rest would lay down their arms and walk away, if they were allowed to, when they were faced with the government forces who'd be making up most of the final attack. There would be a Special Projects team as part of every attack, at some sites they'd have specific objectives if something of interest had been identified at that site, but generally their primary function was the same as they'd be doing in Moscow, connect remote access/wipe devices to the networks, set up satellite relay devices, collect any other intel and computer storage that they can find and get out.

* * *

The plan went off just as Chuck laid out, as soon as the government forces turned up, most of the security forces who were left (which was less than a quarter of what been there before the money disappeared in some sites) laid down their arms, and the rest usually followed suit quick smart as soon as the security systems were suddenly turned off to let the government forces walk straight in.

In Moscow, the security system was strong enough to frustrate Chuck, but he still got through it inside three minutes. After sharing 'Be careful!'s with Bry and the others, Mary, Chuck and their fire teams raced for Volkoff's office. Alexei Volkoff was no less paranoid than he'd been when Mary got away nearly sixteen years ago, and he obviously expected something was about to happen when Volkoff Industries suddenly went broke, because when they breached his office he had a dozen heavily armed security guards waiting there with him. Chuck shot Volkoff with the modified twilight dart, then they took on the guards. It was hardly a fair fight though, because the head to toe armour suits that the twelve had come up with for them (which all the Special Projects people were wearing on this operation) could stop just about any small arms fire at point blank range, so if they were hit, the worst effects they were likely to receive was painful bruising, but the outcome of their returning that fire was rather more lethal.

Once Volkoff's guards were all down, one fire team secured the door and Chuck connected the remote access/wipe devices to the security and computer networks, while a couple of the guys hoisted Volkoff into a chair and Mary put the Intersect glasses on him, the guys holding his eyes open as she activated them. Chuck felt a little guilty when he saw what a painful process it was for him, as he hadn't considered the possibility of that, but he pushed that down and kept hunting for anything else that might be important. Just as they were leaving though, Chuck stopped and turned back to grab the picture of a young woman off Volkoff's desk, taking it with him. That picture had been prominently displayed on the desk where Volkoff could look at it, so for some reason this young woman had been important to him, that made her someone who they'd need to look into, to determine whether she was friend or foe, and whether she was potentially dangerous to them.

* * *

As soon as they reached the roof, they jumped into VM01 and dusted off, because the sooner they transferred to HN1 at the airstrip, the sooner VM01 could return to pick up the others. Vicky knew Chuck well enough to ensure that she had the right hand seat waiting for him on HN1, she'd run through all the checklists and had the engines warmed up by then, so it was taxiing towards the runway as soon as he hit the seat.

As they were taxiing, Chuck asked if there was any news about Sarah and the babies? Vicky shook her head "No, she's still just waiting anxiously." He nodded, and checking the cameras in the cabin as he reached the runway, he saw everyone was strapped in, so he pushed the throttles forward and they were in the air quick smart.

As soon as the plane was stable enough for it to be safe to move about, Vicky unstrapped and went back to check on their passengers and Chuck called Sarah to tell her that he was OK. He kept most of his attention on flying the plane until it was at cruising altitude and on course for Los Angeles, then switched the cockpit displays over to computer screens and settled down to get started on the Volkoff Industries computer systems, getting past their secuity controls and initiating the transfers of anything of interest he found on the systems that the others hadn't said they were already into. A little while later, Vicky brought him coffee and something to eat, and cut him off when he went to ask about the others. "Yes, Volkoff's sedated and your Mom's had something, though I expect that she'll need to get some rest before we're home, she's flagging already."

Chuck grinned "Why don't you go tell her that my orders are for her to get some sleep then?"

Vicky grinned back "OK, if that doesn't work, I can just hit her with a tranq dart!"

That made Chuck's grin widen, and Vicky headed back into the cabin again.

* * *

Chuck spent most of the next two hours working through the Volkoff computer systems, checking the window he had open for the plane systems regularly (Vicky was keeping an eye on the plane displays as well), then shut down his sessions and switched back to the plane systems when they crossed over into Nevada, as they needed to get ready to land.

They flew into Edwards AFB, to avoid customs issues and the like, and also to put HN1 into their hangar there to have their crew go over the plane while it was being refuelled. This was standard practice whenever the planes completed a significant flight, because when it was combined with flying between L.A. and D.C. a few times a week, the flying miles added up, even if the flying hours were a tiny fraction of most planes'. Chuck, Mary, Vicky and the fire teams (the one that came back with them and the one who'd been guarding HN1) transferred to VM05 with Volkoff, or hopefully, Hartley now, and flew back to L.A. The VTOL Mediums had no trouble landing in the roof garden of Quixote House, hell, the VTOL Heavies could do it easy enough. So they just put it down at the pool end and activated the mechanism to haul the cover over it (the frameworks and tracks were there, so when the winches were activated, the cover was pulled up 5M from the roll sitting inside the fence on that side to the top of the frame, and then across to the centreline of the roof garden, that was more than enough to easily cover two VTOL Mediums, so with the one on the other side as well, they could have 4 VTOL Mediums there, under cover and out of sight).

It was a simple matter to haul Alexei/Hartley into the lift on the stretcher and take him straight down the Dungeon's medical centre. At seven months pregnant, Ellie's mobility was limited, but not so much that she couldn't do her job, so she checked him over, and then gave him the injection to counteract the sedative that they'd kept him under with. For Ellie's, and his own, protection, they'd made sure that he was properly secured before she started to bring him out of it, and once he started to come to, Ellie checked him over again then stepped back, letting Stefan and Mary move forward so that they'd be who Hartley saw when he came out of it.

* * *

Hartley was panicking a little as he came to, because he couldn't move for some reason, but as his vision cleared, he could see two people standing beside the bed, table, whatever he was on, and he quickly recognised Stefan and Mary Bartol "Stefan? What's going on, why can't I move, have I had an accident?"

Stefan's face creased in a smile what was so much like Chuck's that the other people in the medical centre looked at each other, because they'd never seen Stefan so openly happy before. "Hello old friend! Do you know who this is?" he pointed at Mary and Hartley looked at him, worried "Are you alright Stefan? That's Mary, your wife!"

Mary and Stefan smiled at each other and Stefan gave a little laugh "That she is, now this may sound strange, but can you tell me your name?"

Hartley was really worried now "I'm Hartley Winterbottom! What's going on? Why would you think that I wouldn't recognise Mary or know my own name? Why can't I move? What's happened to me?"

Ellie came forward to give him a mild sedative and calm him down. Hartley stared at her, why was he being attended by a doctor who was extremely pregnant, and why did she look so familiar somehow? "Doctor, I'm sorry, but do I know you? I feel that I do somehow?"

It was Stefan who answered him, resting a hand on his shoulder "You do in a way Hartley, do you remember my daughter Eleanora?"

"Of course I do Stefan! She's such a sweet girl, but what's that got to do with this?"

Stefan waved at Ellie "This is Eleanora, Hartley."

Hartley's heart rate and blood pressure started spiking as he whipped his head around to stare at Ellie "No! That's not possible! Eleanora's TWELVE!"

Ellie administered a little more sedative and snapped at her father "Dad, stop it! You're going to kill him if you keep this up!" Turning to Hartley, she rested a hand on his shoulder and spoke soothingly to him "Mister Winterbottom try to relax, it will all be OK, you'll be fine if you just relax."

Her soothing tone and the sedative started to bring his heart rate down, then it took another hike as he twigged to the fact that she'd just confirmed what Stefan had told him, that this doctor, a grown, and very pregnant, woman, was indeed Eleanora Bartol, who he only remembered as a twelve year old girl. That made him look at Stefan and Mary again, and he suddenly realised just how old they looked. These observations were making his cognitive functions kick into high gear though and he looked down, understanding WHY he couldn't move, it was because he was secured to this table, very thoroughly.

Ellie watched Hartley's heart rate and blood pressure going down and smiled, as a doctor she was relieved, as the signs were good that she wasn't likely to lose her patient now, and personally, she was relieved that Uncle Hartley seemed to be past the worst of this.

* * *

Hartley was going over all this in his head, the last thing he remembered was being pressured into loading the Agent X program again by that bastard Graham, but that was only supposed to be for two or three months, and looking at these three, it had been a hell of a lot longer than that! He turned to look at Stefan "How long was I Alexei Volkoff, Stefan?"

Stefan just looked at him, because he couldn't think of a way to break it to him, but Mary took Hartley's hand gently "It was over nineteen years, Hartley."

He stared at her, shocked "Nineteen years?" Ellie looked at his readings, worried again, but it hadn't been more than a minor spike, and he was settling down already.

"How did that happen? It was only supposed to be two or three months!"

Mary answered him again "It was Graham, he wanted to get me out of the way, so he had Ted Roark interfere with the code of the Agent X program before it was loaded into you. As a result, the Volkoff personality was…. different from what it was supposed to be, and all the exit protocols had been corrupted so we couldn't turn it off, we've only now managed to get to you and extract the program."

Hartley caught her expression and tone when she said 'different' and frowned "How was it 'different' Mary? You looked frightened when you thought about that, and you've never been frightened of anything!"

She didn't want to tell him, but he'd find out sooner or later "It was, more extreme and violent than Volkoff was supposed to be Hartley."

"MORE violent? The personality we created for Volkoff was a monster who'd dominate women and crush his enemies, the only thing that could have been any worse than that was a psychopa…." He stopped when he saw Mary's and Stefan's expressions, and looking at Eleanora and the others in the room, he saw the same thing on their faces. He looked back at Mary, as she was the only one telling him anything, and asked in a broken voice "What did I do as Alexei Volkoff Mary?" Mary just looked at him, she couldn't tell him THAT! "WHAT DID I DO? MARY, TELL ME WHAT I DID!"

His heart rate and blood pressure was going through the roof again and he was thrashing about, so Ellie hastily upped his sedatives to put him under, putting her hand on his shoulder speaking to him soothingly "Uncle Hartley, shush, don't worry, you're back now and will be alight, just try and calm down…."

The sedative kicked in and he went under again, so she dialled it back to just enough to keep him under. Stefan looked distraught and Mary looked stricken, wondering whether Hartley's gentle soul would ever be able to get over this, she'd forgotten, until he broke down, how aghast he'd been when he watched the video of himself as the 'proper' Alexei Volkoff character, who took what he wanted and dealt with his enemies like any other player in the Russian Mafia did, and now she'd told him that he'd been something worse than that for over nineteen years.

Mary turned to Leo Dreyfus, who'd been hanging back and observing, saying "I shouldn't have told him, should I? Do you think you can get him through this?"

He shook his head "No, he had to be told sooner or later, later may, or may not, have been easier on him, but I do think it was better for him to hear it from someone who he knew and trusted, rather than a stranger like myself. As for getting him through this, yes, I think WE can, his mind is obviously functioning quite well, it was quite impressive how quickly he assimilated the fact that nineteen years had passed and put everything together, we just have to convince him that what Alexei Volkoff did wasn't his fault, which it wasn't. He had no idea that what was being loaded into him had been altered, so he cannot be held accountable for his actions under the effects of that program. It would have been better if he could have faced those who WERE responsible for this, but they're dead, so we'll just have to get him through it without that. Yes, Mary, I believe that we'll be able to help Hartley past this."

Mary rested her hand on Hartley's shoulder as she leant in to kiss him on the cheek, then Stefan put his arm around her and they left the clinic. Ellie and Dr Dreyfus conferred with the medics about Hartley's readings and treatment, then he and Ellie left him in their care (the Special Projects medics were mostly ER doctors, and they were quite capable of providing him with the proper medical care).

 **A/N: Writing this reminded me of something that I've wondered about at times, if Hartley was a close friend of Stephen's, as we were shown in VS Agent X, why didn't either Ellie or Chuck recognise him when they met Volkoff? With the personalities shown, I'm sure that Hartley would have been introduced to Stephen's children at some point?**

 *** DCS = Defense Clandestine Services**  
 **NSA = National Security Agency (Duh!)**  
 **FBI = Federal Bureau of Investigation (Ditto)**  
 **CI = United States Army CounterIntelligence**  
 **OSI = United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations**  
 **NCIS = United States Naval Criminal Investigative Service**


	23. Baby Steps

**FFS, I'm beginning to wonder why anyone bothers putting any effort into writing for this site any more. Over time, even though I didn't particularly like some of the** ** **popular stories**** ** ** ** **I've read**** here**, I could usually see something of merit in, but the current flavour of the week in the Chuck space is a piece of almost illiterate derivative shite that's an unmitigated disaster, and the sheep are just lapping it up. **

**At least I can truly understand the old train wreck saying 'it's so terrible that you can't look away' now, because that fits this story to a tee, I can't help myself reading it to see how much worse it can get, and the flood of gushing reviews it's getting just adds to the experience. If this story was intentionally terrible, it would be brilliant, but they seem to seriously believe that they're doing a wonderful job, because they keep telling everyone how much gooder they're getting.**

 **I must** **also** **admit** **to being quite** **aggravated** **about** **the** **people who have lambast** **ed** **me** **more than once** **for what's in my stories** **,** **saying** **things like** **'** **I just don't enjoy seeing characters from a show I love behaving this way** **'** **, but** **who** **apparently** **have no problem w** **ith** **those characters** **making** **threa** **ts of** **violence** **to** **Sarah, or** **making cowardly** **attack** **s on people** **from behind** **(** **unprovoked and** **without warning** **),** **to** **break th** **eir** **arm in this train wreck** **of a story?** **That's m** **ore than a tad hypocritical I would have thought?**

 **I can't wait for tomorrow's episode of 'Days of our Train Wreck'.**

 **Some people may not like the content of this chapter, as some concepts are a little more adult.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this isn't real, no, really, it's made up.**

* * *

Ellie and Dr Dreyfus let Hartley regain consciousness the next day to talk to him, several times. As Dr Dreyfus had said to Mary, there was nothing wrong with Hartley's cognitive functions, and he quickly realised that if he wanted to get answers, he'd have to at least try to stay calm, because as soon as he'd start getting agitated and his heart rate began to rise, Ellie would hit him with more sedatives to put him under again, because she was worried that his heart might not be able to take it. Over the next few days though, Hartley's periods of consciousness got progressively longer, until Ellie felt comfortable enough to leave him alone to talk to Dr Dreyfus, just using his medical monitors as a safety net, as she'd set up thresholds on his heart rate and blood pressure monitors that would administer sedatives to put him under again if they were tripped.

Once they'd gotten to the point where Ellie left them to it, Dr Dreyfus settled into the process of bringing Hartley back to the real world. After a week of that without the monitors being tripped, Ellie agreed that it should be safe enough to take Hartley off the monitors that he'd been hooked up to 24/7 and move him into the Dungeon's Apartment, and once he was in the more normal surroundings there, his recovery process sped up. Dr Dreyfus brought in Stefan and Bry to fill Hartley in on some of the events that led up to his becoming Alexei Volkoff, and why they couldn't extract him, but he wasn't about to bring Mary in, not for some time anyway, because if Hartley got real answers to his questions about what he did as Volkoff, he'd most likely come crashing down again, and Mary was the only one who'd had first hand experience of him as Alexei Volkoff.

* * *

Of course, Hartley wasn't the only drama in the house, because in the middle of trying to stabilise him, Sarah went into labour. She wasn't due for another two weeks, but between Chuck, Ellie, Sarah and Aunt D, all the necessary arrangements had been in place for over a month. One corner of the Dungeon's medical centre had been screened off and set up as a delivery room, and the best agency cleared delivery teams were on call, the top obstetrician had been closely monitoring both Sarah and Ellie for months, and he and his people were obviously the primary team, but they had two separate backup teams on call as well, and he was keeping the other obstetricians in the loop on everything.

When the time came, the delivery team would be contacted and VTOL Lights sent out to collect them and bring them back ASAP, if anyone from the primary obstetrician's team wasn't available, a substitute would be brought in from one of the other teams. Aunt D had insisted that Chuck, Ellie and Sarah organise everything on a purely professional basis, but unbeknownst to them, she'd had Bry fly her out to put the fear of God into the three obstetricians, telling them to make sure that everyone on their teams understood that these births were a matter of national importance, and if ANYTHING went wrong with either delivery, well the repercussions for them wouldn't be good. The obstetricians were feeling a little singed and anxious by the time she left.

Staying true to time honoured baby traditions, Sarah went into labour at 01:30. Luckily, Chuck being Chuck, he was up working at the time (with a window open on-screen to keep an eye on her), so he called down to Ellie. John had her up there in a wheelchair in just over 30 seconds (they had wheelchairs in both bedrooms for their pregnant wives) and she confirmed that Sarah was indeed going into labour, so Chuck ran to send out the call to the delivery teams and the guys who were picking them up, plus the medics. He also notified Uncle Bry to go collect Aunt D and Uncle Roan. None of them expected the labour to be quick, as first births always seem to drag out, so Uncle Bry should have plenty of time to get to Washington with one of the HyperNovas, pick up her and Roan and get them back to L.A. before the babies arrived.

While he was in the workroom waiting on the responses from everyone on the primary delivery team, he saw the three lifts come up and Uncle Bry and the other pilots running to their aircraft, and had a flashback to the old war movies where the fighter squadrons were being scrambled. Though it seemed much longer, it was less than a minute before all of the primary delivery team had confirmed that they were ready and waiting to be picked up, and he sent those confirmations through to the pilots. By the time he went back into the bedroom, John had helped Sarah into her wheelchair, and the two men pushed their wives down to the other end. Chuck and Sarah went straight down to the medical centre, while Ellie and John went to their room to get dressed before they headed down.

In the medical centre, Chuck and the medics got Sarah ready and settled into the delivery room they'd had set up, and Emma and the girls had come through by the time that Ellie and John came down, so Sarah was surrounded by the people she loved the most. When Carina, Zondra, Mary and the rest of the family got there, they cut it back to no more than two or three people at a time in there with her, not counting Chuck and Emma, and sometimes Ellie and the girls.

Uncle Bry got back with Aunt D and Uncle Roan before the twins were born, and they brought two surprise extras with them, the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense. Chuck pulled Aunt D aside to ask what they were doing there, and Aunt D told him that they'd been worried and asking about Sarah every time they talked for the past month, so she'd called them to share the news when he called her and they'd asked to come. She looked up at her godson "I didn't think that you'd want to be interrupted by a call to ask you about it, and quite frankly I didn't see anything wrong in their request, we've all been working closely for so long, they're more like part of our extended family now."

Chuck nodded "Yeah, you're right Auntie Di, it was just a surprise to see them I suppose." He looked over at where the men were. "They didn't ask about the aircraft did they?"

She looked over herself and shook her head "No, and if they do I'll give them the standard answer, that they're test beds that we don't own the rights to, so they've been set up to destroy themselves if they're interfered with, like some of your father's other creations."

He nodded and bent down to hug her, and she took the opportunity to kiss him on the cheek, kissing Sarah as well before she went out to give Sarah a chance to get a bit of rest before her next contractions started.

Bozena Lisja Carmichael was born after seven and a half hours of labour, with Piotr Filip Carmichael following just ten minutes later. The labour was a little draining for Sarah, but the births themselves were easier than the delivery team had expected them to be.

Everyone was told that their names were old family names*, and their first names were, but the family knew that their middle names were actually their parents' own original middle names. Both babies were in perfect health, and it wasn't hard to see that they'd grow to be pretty much miniature versions of their parents, Zena had her mother's golden blonde hair, sapphire blue eyes and features, but she also had Chuck's curls and smile. Piotr had his father's brown hair and eyes, plus his curls and smile, but he also had Sarah's features, so both their babies were going to be beautiful.

The delivery team, Aunt D, Uncle Roan and their guests were taken back a couple of hours after the babies were born, but they kept Sarah and the babies under observation in the 'delivery room' for the rest of the day. With the size of the master bedrooms in the Penthouse, there was no trouble finding room for all the baby gear, and they'd built a crib that could be easily and smoothly moved about, so that Chuck could take it into the workroom with him and watch the twins as he worked, to let Sarah get as much rest as possible.

* * *

Ellie's time came nearly two months later, and Johanna went easier on her in nearly everything, Ellie went into labour at 20:30, and everyone leapt to their duties just as quickly. Aunt D brought the DNI and Secretary of Defense with her again, and even with her shorter four and a half hours of labour, they were still there in plenty of time.

Johanna Mary Casey, named after her two grandmothers, had Ellie's hair, smile and features, and her father's blue eyes, so the odds were that she was going to be a beauty like her cousins.

Sarah was a little miffed that Ellie and Johanna were settled into their bedroom fairly early the following morning when she and the twins had had to spend a day down in the delivery room though.

* * *

The volume of the material that the teams brought back from the final assault, and the existing workloads of the Intersect and other Special Projects teams, and PS&T, meant that they were still working through the Volkoff Industries material months later. Dr Dreyfus was still devoting a good deal of his time to Hartley (or rather Harvey, as Hartley had agreed that his name was much too distinctive, so if he was going to disappear, Hartley Winterbottom would have to be erased, that was how he became Harvey Winters), and they were spending a lot of that time going over the potential ramifications of Harvey loading the Piranha Intersect.

Just as the Intersect had with Stefan and Chuck, the Agent X Intersect had done a fair bit of damage to Harvey's brain. Ellie and the others were confident that the PI could repair that damage, along with the rest of the ravages of a hard life (especially over the past twenty years or so) as well, but they were worried what the PI unlocking the memories of the last twenty years would do to him.

Mary, Carina, Zondra and others had had a hard time dealing with the memories that came back when they loaded the PI, but they knew that being hit with the memories of nearly twenty years of being a psychopathic monster would have to be far worse than that. The odds on Harvey surviving that with his sanity intact, well they weren't promising.

* * *

About three months after the final assault on Volkoff Industries, Anna came down to the Dungeon, and walked into a raging argument between Chuck, Sarah, Mary, Ellie, Casey and others. Zondra was looking on, obviously concerned, so Anna asked her what was going on? "They're arguing about Chuck going into Volkoff Industries to seduce this young woman who's taken over, and basically screw her into total submission as fast as he can to get this Hydra thing that was supposedly the key to the power that Volkoff held."

"WHAT? How could Chuck expect Sarah to accept that?"

Zondra looked grim "He didn't, it's Mary, Sarah and Casey who are arguing that he needs to do it."

"WHAT?"

Zondra shook her head sadly as she continued "The investigations of the intel that was recovered from the strikes on Volkoff Industries have unearthed references to something called Hydra, and they triggered Mary's memories about it. On the face of it, we broke Volkoff Industries with that final assault, but all of their secrets, connections, operatives, leverage over governments, weapons developments, everything, are apparently locked up in this stand alone Hydra device, so as long as they have it, they can use it to rebuild the power structure that they had, and when they do, they'll come after us. That's the argument that Mary, Casey, and even Sarah are using, though Sarah certainly doesn't want to, that the ONLY way that Sarah, the babies, the girls and the rest of us can ever be safe is if he goes in there as the great slut and screws it out of her, however long it takes. Ellie and Casey don't seem to think it will take long for him to do that, and after getting a small dose of what he can do, I think they're right."

Anna turned back to watch the argument going on, aghast at what was being proposed.

Chuck, Sarah, Ellie and Mary were all in tears, and Casey, Carina and the others weren't far off, as they argued this. Chuck was slowly buckling to the logic of what they were arguing. If what his mother remembered about this Hydra was correct, they'd never be safe as long as it was out there, and the only way to get it without tipping what was left of Volkoff Industries off to its importance was what they were proposing, go in, seduce this eighteen year old Vivian McArthur, who for some reason had been put in place as the titular head of Volkoff Industries, make her forget her own name and give up whatever she knew (including WHY she'd been put in charge of Volkoff Industries), grab this Hydra device, whatever it was, and get out.

He didn't like any part of this, but if it was the only way to protect his wife and children, and the rest of the family, the rest of the world for that matter, he'd have to do it. He knew that Sarah would have been wracking her brain to try and find an alternative, and she wouldn't be arguing for something like this if there was ANY other way to do it, so he decided to just get it over and done with.

Chuck was also hoping that the healing functions of the Piranha Intersect would be enough to protect him from HIV and any other STDs, because insisting on stopping to put on a condom wouldn't be an option, but the only logical explanation they could see for Vivian McArthur's current level of influence was that she'd been Alexei Volkoff's teenage mistress, probably his favourite one, so God knows what she'd picked up from him and others.

The idea of her being Volkoff's mistress was disturbing, in and of itself, because Chuck had found evidence that Volkoff had been supporting her since she was ten, but given Volkoff's God Complex, it was quite conceivable that if he'd seen a beautiful child and decided that he wanted her, he'd decide that it was his right to have her, so he'd do whatever was necessary to get her. When he got back though, Chuck would be doing any and all tests that Ellie could come up with to try and ensure that he was clean before he did anything with Sarah, he wouldn't do anything to put her and their babies at risk.

* * *

They went over what options Chuck had for cover identities, and it was agreed that John Smith was the best option. Anyone who was anyone in this world knew about the undercover special operations legend John Smith, and that he'd disappeared off the radar nearly two years ago. It was also probable that Volkoff Industries still had some of their ex FSB Spetsnaz troops who'd recognise him from the missons that he'd done with the FSB in the past, so if John Smith put out feelers for a new employer, Volkoff Industries would leap at the chance to get him on board. While Chuck and the tech team had stripped away over eighty percent of Volkoff Industries' net worth in their take down operation, it was still worth at least $30 Billion, and they had well over a quarter of a billion in liquid assets that had been tucked away in places that hadn't been worth the risk of exposing the bigger operation to clean out, so they certainly had the money to buy the people that they wanted.

Sure enough, as soon as word went out that 'Smith' was on the market, Chuck was contacted by Volkoff Industries, among others. The Volkoff people who contacted him weren't at all happy when he brushed them off and told them that he'd only deal with the Boss, but they couldn't afford not to pursue this, as his reputation would get them back on the map that much quicker, so they set up the meeting with her and sent a G550 to pick him up from the United Arab Emirates, where he was meeting with sheiks etc to foster the idea that he was hunting around for the best offer.

To set the tone, Chuck seduced the 'flight attendants' (who were all beautiful young escorts of course) on the plane, he didn't really do anything with them, but by the time they reached Moscow, any of them would have done anything he asked. Also, to reinforce to Volkoff Industries just who he was, when one of the guards at their head office in Moscow prodded him with an assault rifle to hurry him along, he put him and anyone else who'd been stupid enough to wade into the fight into intensive care, or the morgue (the ones who'd been out of reach and were trying to shoot him). The more experienced Spetsnaz veterans who'd been on missions with him in the past just stood back and watched, and afterwards laughed, saying (in Russian) _'I see that you_ _have_ _still_ _got_ _it_ _then_ _, Smith?'_ He laughed and replied in the same language _'_ _Well_ _I'm still doing more serious missions than any of you_ _lot_ _,_ _so_ _what makes you think I'd be any less than I was?'_ They just laughed again at that and waved for him to continue on to his meeting.

* * *

When he was shown into her office (the same one that Alexei Volkoff had been using), Chuck faltered momentarily as she was introduced as Vivian Volkoff, but he smiled and said "How do you do Mrs Volkoff?"

Her eyes narrowed and she barked "Miss! I was his daughter, not his wife!"

Chuck nodded easily "My apologies Miss Volkoff, I wasn't aware that Mr Volkoff had a daughter."

She frowned at that "Neither was I until after my mother died when I was ten, Mr Smith."

He nodded again, then said "Was? Is your father dead then Miss Volkoff? I thought that he'd just disappeared?" to give himself more time to cover up how she'd thrown him with that news.

Her being Volkoff's daughter changed the game considerably from what the teenage mistress, or wife, scenario that he'd expected when he came in would have been, but ultimately it didn't change the objective of the mission, she still controlled something which put Sarah, the girls, their babies and the rest of the family at risk, and he had to do whatever was necessary to get it off of her. For that matter, her being Volkoff's daughter could potentially make her far more dangerous than she might have been if she'd just been Volkoff's bed partner since she was twelve or so (the idea that he'd been sleeping with her before she was a woman was too much to stomach), as Volkoff would probably have been grooming her to take over from him when the time came. He had to suppress a shudder at the thought of what someone who'd been programmed to be whatever Alexei Volkoff might regard as a suitable successor for himself since she was ten might be capable of.

Vivian shook her head "No-one knows for sure Mr Smith, but my... advisors tell me that we have to proceed on that basis if we're to rebuild Volkoff Industries."

Chuck nodded, saying "Please call me John, I've never been comfortable with too much formality."

She looked at him for a minute and then nodded "Very well, John, if you call me Vivian."

He smiled at her "It would be my pleasure, Vivian."

Vivian found herself smiling back at him, drawn in by that smile. She tried to stop herself, because they'd made her watch the video feed from the plane, and she'd seen how easily he'd seduced those six talented and experienced escorts, so she knew that he was more than the sweet, charming man he appeared to be here, but she just couldn't help herself. She shook herself and forced herself to get down to business.

"My people tell me that you've refused to deal with anyone but me, 'The Boss', John, why was that might I ask? Weren't the terms that we offered good enough for you?"

He smiled easily "Quite frankly, no Vivian, a number of sheiks, and others, have offered rather more money than you have, for what would most likely be a much easier gig than what I'd be doing for Volkoff Industries, given that they basically just want me there as a figurehead so that they can say that their security team is run by the great John Smith. Mind you, I could, perhaps, be persuaded to come to an agreement with Volkoff Industries if the right things were offered to sweeten the deal." He added this last with a charming smile, but left little doubt of what he was referring to.

Vivian looked at him thoughtfully, oh yes, she knew exactly what he was referring to, and the idea was at once both terrifying and tantalising! Her mind was going a mile a minute at that point, the man in front of her seemed sweet and charming (and remarkably young), and she felt comfortable with him, his terrifying reputation, what he'd done to her guards and what she'd been made to watch him doing on the plane notwithstanding. A large part of the reason that the idea was so terrifying and tantalising was that she was still a virgin. She'd never even had a boyfriend, because ever since she'd come under her father's control when she was ten, any boy or man who'd gotten too close to her had suddenly disappeared, and she didn't really want to think about what might have happened to them, because while some of them had made her skin crawl, many of them had seemed sweet, and nice, much like John did.

For some reason, she felt confident that this man, John, would be gentle and caring, so if she was going to have to sleep with him, maybe he would make her first time something special for her, and that gave her hope, because one of the things that had been truly terrifying her ever since she'd been forcibly dragged into her father's world after he'd disappeared was the indication from her 'advisors' that she'd be expected to be 'sweetening the deal' that way whenever they told her, to lock in the alliances necessary to rebuild Volkoff Industries. She lived in dread of that, as she had little doubt that what she'd have to do for that would be disgusting, degrading and terrible, so the chance that she might be able to have something nice for her first time was something that she desperately wanted to grab onto with both hands.

She looked at him coolly. "Why don't we continue this discussion in my living quarters, where we'll be more comfortable, John?"

Once again, 'John' smiled charmingly and offered his hand to her, she took his hand and led the way out of the office.

Most of the guards escorting them looked nervous, as the stories about what he'd done to the ones escorting him to Miss Volkoff's office had already gotten about, and 'John' knew just how dangerous a frightened person with a loaded weapon can be, so he turned to the ones he'd talked to before, speaking in Russian _'Why don't you get rid of these frightened children before one of them accidentally shoots Miss Volkoff, or me? You have my word that I won't try anything.'_ The men laughed, nodding in agreement, and barked orders to send the rest of the guards away, so it was just the four grizzled Spetsnaz warriors escorting them. Vivian glanced at 'John', amused, because her Russian was good enough to pick up what he'd said to the guards.

* * *

When they reached Vivian's living quarters, two of the guards went in first to check it out, then the guards stood outside and waited as they went inside. Vivian told John to sit down and make himself comfortable while she went to get changed into something more comfortable, but as soon as she left the room, he carefully checked around the room for cameras, then pulled out his phone to sweep for bugs. He was surprised to find that the indications were that the only bugs in her rooms appeared to be around the lounge in the living room, which pretty much dictated his course of action, as he'd have to get her into bed before he started working on her to extract anything to get away from the bugs.

Vivian came out in a robe (which doubtless covered a barely there negligee), just as he'd expected, but what he hadn't been expecting was how nervous she was. When she'd suggested that they go to her rooms to talk, he'd taken that to mean that she was already experienced in seducing men to get what she wanted, as that fit with his idea of what sort of training her father would have given her to ready her to take over from him, but the heightened senses that the PI had given him were telling him that this nervousness wasn't an act, as her heart rate and blood pressure were up.

Chuck drew her down onto the couch beside him and used his tone and an occasional touch to calm her down as they talked about the terms of what it would take to get him to accept Volkoff Industries' offer, negotiating until the incentive and ongoing fees had gone up by 50%, and he'd locked in other extra tangible benefits. As they'd been talking, he'd ever so gradually been increasing the touches, moving ever closer until that he was talking at no louder than a whisper in her ear, his breath on her skin making her shiver, and her heart rate spike repeatedly. In the end, when he stood, picking her up as he did so, she didn't say a word, just wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled into him.

Her nervousness did give rise to some doubts about going through with this, but her not yet being physically experienced in seduction didn't mean that the rest of the succession training that he'd envisaged hadn't gone as expected, and the way she'd negotiated, in here as well as in her office, pointed to at least some of those expectations being correct, so he carried her to the bedroom for the next phase. Inside the bedroom with the door shut, he carefully scanned the room for cameras and, seeing none, pulled out his phone to scan for bugs. The bug scan confirmed the previous results, as he was only getting readings from outside the bedroom, in the direction of where he'd found the bugs in the living room, so he was free to proceed.

Throughout this, he'd kept talking to Vivian in the same tone of voice, and by now she'd been effectively hypnotised by him. The question of whether she wanted him to continue was eagerly if drowsily answered, again and again, and he slowly and gently removed her robe, and then the expected barely there negligee, covering her skin with feathery kisses and touches, just as he had with Zondra, but he didn't stop where he had with Zondra, this was a mission and his family's lives were at stake.

He had serious misgivings when he discovered that Vivian was a virgin, but she begged him to continue and he reminded himself that lack of physical experience didn't prevent the rest of it being true, so he did. The seduction continued for several hours, until Chuck couldn't go on any more, because Vivian had given up enough intel to disprove all his expectations and fears about what Volkoff had made her into to be a suitable successor for the great and terrible Alexei Volkoff, and convince him that he had in fact done this to an innocent young woman.

* * *

Vivian slowly came down from, well the high of spending the last several hours in pretty much a constant string of orgasms, to hear someone quietly crying. That was enough to begin pulling her out the happy gaze she was wrapped in, and she saw John sitting on the floor beside the bed, crying. She went to him, kissing him and asking him what was wrong, getting thoroughly confused when he started apologising for what he'd done to her, because at that point she was thinking that she'd be the happiest woman in the world if he did that to her for the rest of her life.

As Chuck explained to her what he was here for and why, his words dispelled her happy haze rather effectively, though vestiges of the warm glow and sweet ache inside of her remained. For a short while, she WAS angry about the way he'd played her, but between the way she still felt inside, and the strong logic and reasoning powers that she'd inherited from her father, she was able to push that down, because she was prepared to accept, given what he told her, that he'd had very good reasons for what he'd done. There was one thing that he told her that was totally confusing her though.

"What do you mean that Alexei Volkoff isn't my father?"

"Well I suppose that, strictly speaking when you were conceived, and up until the day that he disappeared, he WAS Alexei Volkoff, but before he was Alexei Volkoff he was Hartley Winterbottom, a British scientist who was seconded to the CIA in California to work with my father on some of their top technology projects." Vivian went to say something but he put his hand up to stop her.

"The main project that they were working on was something called the Intersect, and back when your father was working on it, the aim for the Intersect was to imprint another personality onto the host, to create an instant undercover agent as it were. Before I was born, the CIA official in charge of the project apparently insisted on a demonstration of what the Intersect could do, and your father volunteered to be the test subject. Apparently the Agent-X program ran for fifteen to twenty minutes that time, and your father was very convincing as a member of the Russian Mob for the duration."

"After that Graham, the one in charge of the project, started insisting on more functionality being added into the Intersect to let it do other things, and your father and mine were working on delivering that functionality, but the average human brain just couldn't handle the Intersect program with this other functionality in it. Over time, Graham had made my father accept others into the team, people who would do what Graham told them to when our fathers refused, because it was too dangerous, or wrong. So when our fathers refused to do any more testing until they were sure that it was safe, because the first test subjects had been brain wiped or killed when they loaded the Intersect, Graham had the others load the Intersect into another batch of test subjects, with the same results as before."

"I don't know about your father, but mine started falling apart after that, and my mother, who was a CIA agent, was talking about going to the head of the CIA to get the project canned when Graham supposedly came up with an urgent requirement to insert an arms dealer into the Russian Mob that they could only pull off by using the Agent X program that your father had demonstrated. Our fathers modified the parameters to suit the requirements of the role that Graham provided, and Graham apparently convinced your father that it was his duty to load the program and go in for two to three months as this arms dealer."

"The problem was that there wasn't any real requirement for this, the purpose of the exercise was to get my mother out of the way so that she couldn't go to the head of the CIA. Graham had one of his people on the team hack up the Agent X program so that Alexei Volkoff wasn't the Russian Mob arms dealer he was supposed to be, he was a psychopath, he also hacked up the exit protocols so that they wouldn't work, but they didn't know that at the time."

"My parents tried to get your father extracted when it became apparent that the Volkoff personality wasn't what it was supposed to be, but Graham refused, saying that it was much better for the job at hand this way, and that it would finish in six months anyway. My mother came to Moscow about five months after your father was inserted into the Mob, so that she'd be in place to extract him when the six months were up and the program finished. When six months came and went without the Agent X program finishing though, she tried to use the manual triggers to terminate the program, but none of them worked."

"That was when Graham played his hand, as he had Volkoff tipped off that Mom was a CIA agent who'd been sent after him, obviously with the intention of having him kill her and get rid of his problem. When Roark, the one he got to hack up the Agent-X program, was futzing about with it though, he'd apparently left some holes that allowed some of your father's own memories and personality to show through, because he recognised Mom as a friend and wouldn't kill her."

He stopped and looked at Vivian "That may have been why Volkoff didn't have you trained to be what I was afraid that you were, your father may have managed to block Volkoff from shaping you into a monster like he was!"

She looked at him musingly, this all sounded like some science fiction fantasy, but Chuck, as she now knew his real name to be, had told her enough to believe in the reality of the Intersect at least, so she nodded slowly and he went on.

"My father had hung onto a copy of the Agent X program that was loaded into your father, and almost a year ago, when my father finally got his head together again after we straightened out HIS problems with the Intersect, we got one of my people who'd a genius at reverse engineering code to extract the code, then I came up with an extraction program with someone else on the team. That of course just highlighted the big problem, though, how the hell to get to Volkoff to extract the Agent X program."

"That's why I came up with the plan to take Volkoff Industries down, so we could get to Volkoff and extract the Agent X program. It took us six months to set it up, but we did it three months ago, and your father's back as himself again."

* * *

He drew a deep breath. "We've been going through everything we collected in the raids against the Volkoff Industries sites, and started finding references to something called Hydra. Mom remembered what Volkoff had told her about Hydra being where he kept all the secrets that Volkoff Industries' power and success came from, and we realised that we'd need to recover it if we, and everyone else, were ever to be safe from Volkoff Industries, and that's why I'm here."

Vivian rolled onto her back, looking at the ceiling as she tried to put these fantastic stories together. After about ten minutes of thinking, she said quietly "Your mother was right, what's stored in Hydra is enough to make Volkoff Industries just as powerful and dangerous as it was before, but only two people know where Hydra is."

Chuck turned around to look at her "I'm hoping that you're one of them, and you're prepared to help us?"

She rolled over to look him the eye "Yes, and yes, if you take me with you."

Chuck looked nervous and uncomfortable as he tried to find a way of answering her without offending her, and she had to laugh. This guy was incredible! After what he'd done to her over the past, well she really didn't have any idea how many hours, she was quite prepared that he could quite literally blow a woman's mind with ecstasy and leave her brain dead, because she'd felt that she'd been getting close to that point several times, but now he was like a little boy who didn't know how to tell her something.

She leaned over to kiss him, as she wanted to do that while she still could. "Chuck, I understand, you have a wife and family that you're going back to, I know that you can't be mine, I'm just asking if you'll get me out of here, and maybe help me get set up somewhere else where I can be safe?"

His look of relief at that drew another laugh out of her, and then he was hugging her "Of course! I wouldn't leave you here! After we get back to California we can sort out what you want, and maybe you and your father will want to stay with us?"

She kissed him again "Maybe, anyway, the actual Hydra database is stored in the fake eyeball that one of my bodyguards has, Yuri Gobrienko, who's also known as Yuri the Gobbler because of the charming habit he has of eating parts of the people he kills."

She nodded at the shudder that Chuck gave "Yeah, the equipment to access the data in the eyeball is in my father's, well my office now, that's going to be a lot harder to carry out than the database itself though."

Chuck shook his head "I don't think that will be necessary, we have all the designs for the reader, they were what started us looking into what Hydra was."

"That makes this so much easier then! My father, well Volkoff, called Yuri in one day so that he could show me what's in the Hydra Database, and he told me then that no-one but us and Yuri know that it's all stored in his eye."

Chuck nodded at that "Well then, presuming that we can get Gobrienko's eyeball, we could get out of here tonight. How much do you want to bring with you?"

Vivian looked around the room, thinking, then turned back to him "I could fit everything I want into an overnight bag, but the only things I really need are my pictures of my mother."

Chuck nodded again "Why don't you get what you want together then, and do you have any way of calling Gobrienko here without alerting the whole place?"

Vivian smiled and pointed to her night stand "All I have to do is press that button over there and he'll be here inside ten minutes, he's my bodyguard, remember? Do you think you can take him?"

Chuck nodded absently as he considered the other issues that needed to be handled, at least one or two of the guards outside would follow Gobrienko in, so he'd have to take them too, but what if they were too far away for him to reach them before they raised the alarm? He looked back at Vivian with a smile "I don't suppose you'd have a suppressed pistol laying about somewhere in here would you?"

Vivian grinned, opening the drawer in her night stand, extracting the pistol there to hand to him. She laughed again at the look of astonishment on his face as he whispered "I was actually joking!" but then he smiled "We can do this! How long will it take you to get ready?"

She sniffed at herself "Do I have time to have a quick shower? I reek of sex, and so do you, I'm not complaining, but I expect that we'll be wishing we'd had a shower by the time we get back." Chuck didn't bother telling her that they'd be in California within a few hours, because he'd rather not walk in smelling of sex when he got home either, so he said, "A quick shower, yes."

Vivian nodded and ducked into the bathroom, calling out less than ten minutes later that the shower was free. Chuck took even less time, and they were both dressed and ready, with everything that Vivian wanted to take in a small overnight bag within twenty minutes. Chuck sent the call for the VTOL light to come pick them up, checked the magazine in the pistol to confirm how many rounds he had, and nodded to Vivian. As she pressed the button to call Yuri, he stepped back behind the door, out of sight.

It was just under seven minutes later that Yuri burst through into the room with six guards on his heels, and it only took Chuck four seconds to put a bullet into each of their heads before he dashed out to make sure that there weren't any others left outside. He returned in time to see Vivian gingerly pluck the fake eyeball with the Hydra Database out of Yuri's eye socket and hold it out to him with a grimace. He put the pistol on the bed before he bent down and pulled a handkerchief from Yuri's pocket to wipe it off, having a quick look at it before he wrapped it in the handkerchief and put it in his pocket.

Only then did he note that Vivian had already quickly and efficiently collected all the weapons and mags from the men and had them laid out on the bed, removing the mags from four of the assault rifles and tossing them into the overnight bag, along with the spare mags. She extracted the mag from her suppressed pistol and reloaded it, asking "Which pistols do you want?" as she did so.

"Would you mind if I hung onto the suppressed pistol, plus one of the guard's pistols?"

She said "Not at all" as she grabbed the two spare mags for the pistol from her night stand and dropped them next to the pistol, adding the other pistol and a couple of mags for it as well. She then scooped up the rest of the pistols and mags from the bed and dropped them into the bag before picking it up and settling it across her back, picking up one of the assault rifles and looking at Chuck expectantly.

By then, Chuck had the guard's pistol in the back of the waistband of his trousers and the mags in his pockets. He finished settling the other assault rifle across his back and grinned at her, gesturing with the suppressed pistol to the door as he asked "Shall we?" She grinned back and nodded for him to lead off.

Even with the time for Chuck to disable all the alarms and door controls, they were on the roof, within ten minutes. With his heightened senses he could see where the VTOL Light was waiting, so he took Vivian by the hand to lead her to it. The side door opened as they reached it and he handed her in, clambering in behind her as it lifted off. As the door shut, Mary turned to ask "Did everything go OK Honey?", looking suspiciously at Vivian.

* * *

Chuck grinned "Yeah Mom, we have the Hydra Database, and someone that Uncle Hartley will definitely want to see" he saw her about to say something and cut her off "His daughter!"

There was enough light for him, at least, to see her eyes widen as she looked at Vivian again, and then she suddenly looked stricken "What is it Mom?"

"Oh my God, Vera, how could we have forgotten about her?"

"Who's Vera?"

"Well, if you're correct about this young lady, her grandmother, Vera Winterbottom. Your father and I were in contact with her quite a bit for the first few years after I got back, but it got to the point where it seemed cruel to keep giving her false hope, so we talked to her less and less, it must be seven or eight years since we talked to her now, Chuck, we need to go to Somerset in England before we go back!"

Vivian turned to look at Chuck, as if to ask whether this could be true. Chuck nodded as he put his arm around her and she clutched at him, hanging onto him as if he was the only thing real in her world at the moment. That drew another suspicious look from Mary, but she backed down when Chuck met her eye and challenged her with his gaze.

When they landed at the airstrip outside Moscow, Chuck grabbed Vivian's bag with her pictures etc and kept his arm around her as he led her onto the HyperNova. Within ten minutes, the VTOL Light had been converted from flight to storage configuration and locked down on the ramp, and the ramp was closing as the HyperNova was being readied for takeoff.

With the ramp and door shut, they brought up the interior lights, and Mary got her first good look at Vivian. That was enough for her doubts to disappear as she smiled at her "Oh yes, you're Hartley's girl alright! I can see so much of Vera in you!" That got a smile from Vivian and they embraced before Chuck spoke over the intercom.

"Strap in, we're about to take off!"

As soon as they were on course, Chuck called to make the necessary arrangements for them to get access to land at RNAS Yeovilton, and also for them to borrow a couple of vehicles when they arrived. When they started to descend less than 45 minutes after they took off from Moscow, Vivian started to panic, asking what was wrong, and she didn't find Mary's grin or "You'll see!" very reassuring.

When the door popped open and they exited the plane. Vivian stopped and stared as she turned around, how the hell were they in England? They hadn't even been flying for an hour! The hits didn't stop there though, because she heard how the Royal Navy officer addressed Chuck as he saluted him, ADMIRAL Carmichael? Was she going crazy, was her name Alice or something?

Vivian was looking rather dazed as Chuck took her by the hand and led her to the Land Rovers that had been supplied for their use. He handed her into one of the Land Rovers before hopping in himself and taking off, while Mary and Mike went in the other. When they got to the cottage, Chuck waved Mary forward, because she was the only one there who knew Vera. Mike stayed with the Land Rovers, and Chuck might have as well, if Vivian hadn't needed assistance, but she was still a little unsteady on her feet.

When Vera came to the door, Mary smiled and said "Hello Vera." Vera stared at her, trying to work out who she was at first, and then her eyes widened "Mary, Mary Bartol, is that you?"

After they'd had their hugs, Vera turned to the other two, looking up at Chuck (who was over a foot taller than her) and asking "And who's this handsome young man?"

Mary smiled, "This is Charles, my baby."

Chuck glowered at her for that, but Vera smiled up him, "Oh yes, I can see Stefan in him" before turning to Vivian and looking confused "But this lovely girl can't be your daughter Mary, she's much too young, do you have another daughter?"

Mary put her arm around her "No Vera, she isn't my daughter, this is your granddaughter, Vivian"

Vera almost collapsed, "Granddaughter? What do you mean Mary? I don't have a granddaughter?"

Mary held her tight "Yes, you do Vera! She's Hartley's daughter, and I have more good news, we've got Hartley back!"

Vera looked at her in a stunned state, with tears streaming from her eyes, and then she turned to Vivian and took a couple of unsteady steps towards her. Vivian came forward to meet her and they threw their arms around each other and cried for a few minutes.

When they'd settled down a little, they all went inside and Mary filled Vera in on what had happened, how they'd extracted the program from Hartley's head and got him out of Volkoff Industries, and back to the States.

When Mary had finished telling her the story, she looked at Vera and asked. "So, are you ready to leave this place and come with us to America?"

She wasn't at all surprised by Vera's response "What do you bloody well think? Why the hell would I stay in this old house if my son and my beautiful granddaughter are in America? If everything I've been waiting for for the past twenty years is over there, that's where I'll bloody well be too!"

Everyone laughed at that, and Mary and Vivian helped Vera pack what she wanted to take with her.

When Mike came in to help Chuck carry everything out to the Land Rovers, Vera up looked at him wide eyed, saying "Bloody hell, you're a biggun, aren't you?" That got another round of laughs.

Once the decision had been made, it took less than an hour and a half to get everything stowed away, and they did a final sweep, but Vera didn't have many things to add to the pile. With that, they locked up the house and they were away.

* * *

Back at Yeovilton, they transferred Vera's things to the HyperNova, Chuck thanked the officers for their assistance, and they took off again, next stop Edwards AFB in California.

By the time that were on course for California, Vivian had fallen asleep in her seat. Mike helped Mary get her more comfortably settled on the seat, and then Mary spent the next hour and a half talking quietly to Vera and explaining the challenges that would be in front of both Hartley and Vivian. She also explained that Hartley was Harvey Winters now, and why, but Vera had no trouble understanding any of this, as she'd been quite a good field agent in her day, until she got out to have Hartley and raise him. She'd gone back later on, in more of a controller role, but she'd kept up her qualifications.

When Chuck told them that they were over Nevada, Mary went to wake Vivian and make sure she was strapped in.

At Edwards, Chuck ran the HyperNova straight into their hangar, and they transferred their passengers and their things over to a VTOL Medium for the run down to Quixote House. There, Mary took Vera and Vivian back to her apartment and settled them into the spare room, Vivian was out cold as soon as her head hit the pillow, so her grandmother's snoring didn't bother her in the least.

Sarah woke the instant that Chuck entered the bedroom, and smiled as she watched him go to kiss the twins before he came to the bed. After making up for the day's worth of kisses they'd missed, Sarah lay in Chuck's arms as he told her what had happened.

"It turned out that Vivian McArthur wasn't Volkoff's teenage mistress after all, she was his daughter, and I found out that she's pretty much an innocent in all of this, but not until after I'd done what I went there for." Sarah heard the self loathing in his voice, but he held her where she was until she said "Chuck, let me turn around!"

When she'd turned around, she took his face in her hands and looked him in the eye "Was there any way of proving what she was or wasn't before you did what to reluctantly went there to do?" After a while he gave a small shake of his head "No, and I'm willing to bet you gave her the experience of a lifetime as well. Did you manage to get the Hydra device?"

"Yes, we need to build the reader, but the Hydra Database was hidden in the fake eye of Vivian's bodyguard, so we killed him and the other guards and took it, it's in the safe (nodding at the workroom), Vivian and her grandmother are staying with Mom."

Sarah pulled back to look at him "Grandmother?"

"Yes, apparently Mom and Dad forgot that they'd been talking to Hartley's mother regularly up until seven or eight years ago until I brought Vivian out of Volkoff's headquarters. From what she and Mom were talking about, she used to be a field agent, and she's certainly on the ball! For that matter, so's her granddaughter, she's got a mind like a steel trap, and quite a good weapons familiarity, I think they'll both fit in here."

Sarah looked at him and smiled, coming in to kiss him. "Love you!"

"Love you more!"

 *** I expect that fans know that Piotr and Bozena are actually Yvonne's parents' names.**


	24. Making Plans For Riley

**Yeah, I realise that I shouldn't allow the terminally stupid to aggravate me, but they do, even a day and a half off in the country wasn't enough to scrub that completely, sorry.**

 **This is largely fluff, though they will be taking out the trash at one point.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this isn't the real world, it's made up.**

The next day, Vivian felt a little better, and Mary and her grandmother started filling her in on the world she was part of now and how her father had come to be Alexei Volkoff, with Sarah and Ellie, Chuck's wife and sister, coming over with their babies to help fill in the other details that the older women couldn't explain. These sessions went on for weeks, with Vera spending more and more time away, talking to her son, as it had been agreed that finding out about Vivian just yet could well be as damaging to Harvey as hearing from Mary what he'd been like as Alexei Volkoff, but Vera was his mother and his memories of her were all prior to Volkoff, so they thought that that should be safe enough.

One of the times that Vera was downstairs with her father, Vivian asked Sarah and Ellie why they'd reacted the way they had when her grandmother told the story about how she met and fell in love with her grandfather? Sarah and Ellie looked at each other, and Ellie reached across to squeeze Sarah's hand with a smile before she turned to Vivian "Well, Sweetie, it's because it was so much like how Chuck and my parents met, and it wasn't too different from how Sarah's parents met, either. You see, my father was a scientist working for the CIA…." Vivian nodded, "Yes, Chuck told me about that"

Ellie nodded "Mom was the agent doing the close support part of Dad's protection detail, and they fell in love and then got married after Mom got pregnant with me. You can see how similar that was to the story that your grandmother told us, though Dad wasn't over twenty years older than Mom, or an ex-Nazi East German scientist who'd defected to the west." She paused and looked at Sarah "Auntie Em, Sarah's Mom, was the CIA's best analyst, she was just as famous as Mom was back then, and her father was an agent, so they met through the CIA too, so all of our families came out of agents meeting scientists or similar through the agency."

Vivian nodded thoughtfully "If you put it that way, the way my parents met wasn't really that different either, Mum was a scientist working for Volkoff Industries and caught Dad's eye. The way she talked about him, well it made me think that she was afraid of him sometimes, but I don't believe that he forced her, she never gave me that impression….. He did talk her into returning to England and made sure that we'd have quite a comfortable life there when they found out that she was pregnant, because he said that it would be a better place to have and raise a child than Russia. After Mum died, he put me through the best boarding schools in England and on the Continent, though he added many things to my training that I didn't understand until that man Riley turned up and grabbed me from university in London after my father disappeared, dragging me back to Moscow. He told me that it was time to take over my father's empire, as that was what I'd been being prepared for since I was ten…."

She paused at that and turned to Sarah, saying "I think we need to clear the air about what I did with your husband. I'm sorry, I didn't know that he was married at the time, but I'm not certain that it would have changed anything if I did, you see, Riley and my other 'Advisors' had been making it quite clear that I'd be expected to do anything necessary to seal the deal with the men they were trying to forge alliances with to get Volkoff Industries back to its former glory, and that terrified me. I was a virgin and I was being told in no uncertain terms that if I didn't do whatever any of those men wanted, what happened to me afterwards would be far worse, then Chuck came along, nice and cute and young, and I could just tell he'd be more gentle and caring than anyone else I was made to do this with, so I was desperate to have my first time with him, in hope that it might give me something to get me through what I had to do with the rest of them. I went and put on one of those negligees they supplied that I swore I'd never wear because I was effectively naked and came out to…."

She broke off when Sarah burst into tears at her words, Mary started to say something but Sarah angrily shook her head, saying "NO! I need to tell her this, she deserves to hear it from me!" she took a few deep breaths to compose herself, then looked Vivian in the eye and started talking.

"Vivian, when we found out about the Hydra device from Mom, we were worried, because the idea of Volkoff Industries being able to become as powerful as it had been before and come after us, come after our children, it terrified us. We've got considerable intelligence resources at our disposal, and some of the best minds in the business on our team, but as much as we looked for a better option, the ONLY viable one seemed to be to send someone in to seduce Volkoff's mistress, who'd been put in as a figurehead to run the company."

She drew another breath "As far as we could see this young woman, even though she was still a teenager, must have been Volkoff's favourite for some time to be put in as the face of Volkoff Industries as she was, so logic said that if he'd given the information about where to find this Hydra device to anyone, it'd be her. We only had one person who had a chance of seducing this teenage temptress, and that was Chuck, because…."

Ellie cut in there, as she knew this part of the story better than anyone else "Because Chuck went through a wild period when he was a teenager, well it actually started before he was a teenager, because he was only twelve when he got into it, that's how he's got twin daughters who are about to turn sixteen. He slept with just about any girl who asked for four years and he became quite adept at pleasuring women, singly or in groups, in that time…." She stopped and looked at Vivian, but shook her head, no, that'd be a cheap shot.

"Well that was why he was the only one we had who had a chance of doing this, because he was more sexually experienced than the rest of us put together, he was given the name of the great slut back then for good reason, even though he hadn't been with anyone but Sarah since his twenty first birthday…." Sarah nodded at that and took over again.

"So that was why I gave in and helped the others talk my husband into taking on this seduction mission, even though I hated the idea of it, just as I'd hated doing them every time I'd had to as an agent myself, because the safety of our children and the rest of the family depended on getting this Hydra device, and he was our only hope. You have nothing to apologise for Vivian, it's me who needs to apologise to you, because we just presumed that Vivian McArthur was some girl Volkoff had picked up to be his young mistress, and maybe sleep with others like you were saying, so we convinced Chuck that he had to do this to get the Hydra device, to protect the children and others who can't protect themselves. We never even considered the possibility that you may have been an innocent of any of this, we never considered that you could be anything but his mistress, if not an outright whore."

Vivian flinched back at that, tears starting in her eyes, as that stung! Sarah reached out to her "But we were wrong! And I'm so sorry for what we put you through." Vivian nodded "It's alright, I'm not saying that I'm likely to forget that you all thought I deserved to be treated that way because I was a whore, or how much it hurt to hear that, in a hurry, but I can see how it would have looked, and…." That had hurt so much that she just couldn't resist returning a barb "The experience that Chuck gave me, from all the stories I've heard, several hours of incredible ecstasy, well one in a million doesn't come close to it, and he also got me away from what they had planned for me in Volkoff Industries and reunited me with the family I didn't know I had, so I think you actually did me a favour."

Sarah's face went hard at Vivian's words, but she had to concede that she'd had that coming, she'd been rather more blunt to her than she needed to be, especially when she was trying to apologise to her for sending Chuck in to seduce her and screw the location of the Hydra device out of her. The apologies they gave each other after that were genuine and heartfelt though, which improved the chance that they'd get past this and be friends.

* * *

Vera and Vivian spent a lot of time down at the urban combat range together, getting to know each other while they shared this activity, in the eyes of 'normal' people, it would have been a very dysfunctional form of family bonding, but in this group, it just proved how well they fit in. They also astounded everyone with their proficiency, the guys, well most of them, couldn't get enough of Vera because she was amazing, this tiny woman in her mid seventies was having the time of her life, blasting away at targets with anything she could get her hands on. Pistols, submachineguns, assault rifles, squad automatic weapons, sniper rifles, grenade launchers (seeing her work the course with the big, heavy M32 was an eye opener), whatever she could use she would, and what's more, if she hadn't been up against the very best as she was here, she would have scoring quite well, they all bowed down to her, not a few making comments about 'the mother I never had' with tears in their eyes. Vivian was no slouch either, she didn't command quite the same awe as her grandmother did, because in this group beautiful young women who could keep up with elite special operations specialists were the norm, rather than the exception, but she commanded respect for her ability and performance, and she was readily accepted by everyone.

Unfortunately, it was one of these combat range family bonding sessions that spawned a major episode for Harvey, as he was drawn by the cheering of the men as they urged Vera and Vivian on when they were shooting against each other, and when he saw Vivian, the Piranha Intersect brought up all his memories of her, including what Volkoff had done to her mother. After weeks of debate, it had been decided that the Agent-X Intersect had caused enough damage to Harvey's brain to make it pretty much mandatory to use the PI to repair the damage. Their fears about what the memories that were almost certain to be recovered when the PI was loaded may do to him meant that anyone who might trigger Alexei Volkoff memories had tried to stay away from him, so it was pretty much only Dr Dreyfus and his mother who saw him while they were trying to stabilise him.

The hope was that once he'd settled into having these memories in the back of his head, they'd be able to ease him into accessing and accepting those memories with less guilt. The problem was, when he followed the cheering and saw his daughter, it all came crashing down on him and he collapsed, screaming about what he'd done to her and her mother. One of the men present managed to grab a tranq pistol and put him under quickly, but it was a major setback to his recovery.

When they got him back to the medical centre, Ellie checked him over, and they were relieved to find no physical complications from the episode, but they were all anxious to find out how he'd be when he came to. When Ellie brought him out of it, everyone breathed a sigh of relief when he was lucid and moderately calm, asking to see his daughter, if she was willing to see him. The joy and relief on his face when she appeared and ran up to embrace him within five minutes of him asking for her brought tears to many eyes in the medical centre, and John and the other grizzled warriors weren't at all ashamed to show that emotion. After he'd hugged her and kissed her on the cheek, Harvey asked her to take a seat, because he had to tell her a few things, Vivian did as he asked nervously, and he began the story of him and her mother.

The first parts of the story were similar to what her mother had told her about what happened up to her conception, though his version cast him in a harsher light than her mother's had. No, he hadn't forced her, but with him being the great and terrible Alexei Volkoff, she hadn't exactly been given the option of ignoring his advances either. Vivian recalled the times that he brought up of when he came to see her when she was growing up in England, and how she'd been told that her father was a busy oil baron right up to when he disappeared and that Riley creature came to get her, to drag her back to Russia so she could act as the figurehead of Volkoff Industries, but Harvey was getting increasingly upset as he got closer to the point where her mother died. Vivian took his hand to comfort him, telling him that he didn't have to do this, but Harvey shook his head.

"No, I have to tell you this! Vivian, my sweet girl, I'd ask you not to hate me but I really don't believe that that's an option, because you see, I had your mother killed!" Vivian looked shocked, but she didn't let his hand go and said. "Tell me what happened Papa."

"I had Riley keeping an eye on you, to make sure that you were safe and well, but when you were coming up to your tenth birthday, he started telling me how your mother was trying to turn you against me, how she was poisoning your mind with stories about me. He told me that I'd lose you if I didn't do something about it. I was in the middle of a major expansion of Volkoff Industries at the time, so I just told him to fix the situation. I didn't tell him to kill her, but if I'd stopped to think about it, that was the obvious interpretation of the order I gave him, and when the news came through about her dying in that car crash a couple of months later, I'm afraid that I didn't shed a tear, as I felt justified because of what she'd been doing to turn you against me."

Vivian squeezed his hand to make him look at her. "Papa, stop saying that YOU did this! That wasn't you, it was Alexei Volkoff! And from what you've told me, even what he did was because of the lies of that Riley creature….. Mama never said or did anything to turn me against you Papa, she always told me that you were a very busy man and that was why we saw you so rarely. I did feel that she was a little afraid of you, of Volkoff I mean, sometimes, but that wasn't anything she actually said, it was just the way she said things sometimes. Mama tried to make sure that I knew that my father wanted to be with me, but he had a lot of responsibilities and he couldn't, anything else you were told was just a lie."

Harvey stared at her, looking broken as he took in the fact that his daughter's mother had been killed because of some scheming bastard's lies. As he began to cry, Vivian put her arms around him and held him. The look on her face as she caught Chuck's gaze over her father's shoulder was a mirror of her grandmother at her most determined, and he nodded grimly when she asked him "Chuck, can we do something about that Riley creature, please? I've had quite enough of what his scheming's done to me and my family!"

Chuck's expression matched hers as he replied "Yes, it's becoming quite apparent that Mister Riley has been the one behind the worst side of Volkoff Industries for rather longer than we've realised, so it's not safe to leave him out there to keep perpetrating his plans!"

At that, Harvey gently pushed Vivian back, kissing her on the cheek, and stood, crossing to where Chuck was standing. He embraced him, saying "Thank you Charles, but may I ask that I be part of this, please? I have a lot to repay Mister Riley for."

Chuck stepped back to look him in the eye "Only if your doctors sign off on it Uncle Harvey, you've still got a long way to go with your recovery" he stopped to think for a moment "Make that your doctors and Bill, because even if Ellie and Doctor Dreyfus were to clear you to go in, which I must say I rather doubt, I won't let you go along on a mission unless Bill signs off on the fact that you're able to look after yourself in action."

Harvey nodded, accepting the caveats "Can I get cleared for enough range time to allow me to work on meeting that second requirement while I work on getting my doctors' permission?"

Chuck waved to the two doctors "That's up to them too, if they say that it's OK, then you can have free use of the range."

Harvey nodded again "Thank you Charles." He started to turn away and then stopped, suddenly remembering something else "That wasn't all Riley did though, it's all coming back to me now, he was also the one who told me that your mother was CIA, and who told me about you, Eleanora and your father, to try and convince me that I couldn't trust her and needed to get rid of her."

Chuck nodded, his expression turning darker "It appears that Mr Riley has been coming after our whole family for a long time now, mainly to advance his own interests, but he also seems to have somehow been connected to Graham's schemes. Yes, it's definitely time we had a talk to Mr Riley! And afterwards, well I don't see him enjoying what comes after either." Of the people there, only Ellie, Aunt D, Uncle Bry and Casey recognised Chuck's grim smile at that point, and even they, who'd been closest to Chuck for most of his life, hadn't seen that expression on his face more than once or twice, as this was Chuck preparing to go to war, and heaven help anyone who stood against him!

* * *

Much to Chuck's surprise, Ellie and Dr Dreyfus cleared Harvey to go into training, and that led to further surprises when he proved that he could actually beat some of the people on their team on the range. When asked to explain this, he pointed out that he'd been training and running missions with his ex-Spetsnaz security forces for nearly twenty years now, and just as Chuck and Ellie had obviously inherited capabilities from Mary, so had he from Vera, apparently.

Both Vera and Vivian were enjoying working with him on the Urban Combat Range, but a couple of weeks after he saw Vivian and recalled everything about her mother, Vivian started coming down with something. At first they all just thought she'd picked up a bug from someone, but when she wasn't getting any better after a week of antibiotics, Ellie insisted on running a full battery of tests on her.

The call she got from Ellie, asking her to come up to the Penthouse to talk about the results of the tests wasn't making Vivian feel very confident, so she was quite nervous when she arrived, and Ellie's attempt to be casual as they settled down with coffee at the table in the informal kitchen wasn't doing anything to dispel that nervousness, so Ellie cut to the chase.

"What contraceptives were you on in Moscow Vivian?"

"What? Why would I be on any contraceptives, I wasn't sleeping with anyone yet?"

"Oh Sweetie, what were you planning on doing when they made you sleep with those men like you told us? You know that you have to be on the contraceptives for at least a month before they start protecting you, don't you?"

Vivian had tears in her eyes as she shook her head "No, no-one's ever told me anything about that."

Ellie sighed "Oh well, that explains why they didn't work I guess. Look, I don't know any easy way to tell to this Sweetie, so I'll just come out and say it, you aren't sick, you're actually pregnant."

"But I've only been with,… that can't be, it can't happen after just one time, can it?"

Ellie nodded sympathetically, "Yes, I'm afraid that it can Sweetie, and that means that Chuck has to be the father."

"Oh no! Ellie, we'll have to get rid of it before anyone else finds out or Sarah will kill me!"

Ellie reached over to squeeze her hand "Shush! Stop talking nonsense! No-one's going to make you get rid of the babies unless that's what you want to do."

"No Ellie, didn't you see the way she looked at me when I was talking about what Chuck did for me when we were together? If she was that angry with me for sleeping with her husband, there's no way that she'd ever forgive me for getting pregnant to her husband!"

Ellie grasped her shoulders to get her attention. "Vivian, look at me! Do you WANT to get rid of the babies, yes or no? If that's really what you want, if you can't handle the idea of having babies, we can do that, but if you don't want to get rid of them, we can work through this, I promise you."

Vivian shook her head with tears in her eyes "No, I don't want to get rid of my baby."

Ellie nodded. "OK, well as the person that you're obviously the most worried about is Sarah, why don't we get her up here to try and dispel those fears?"

Vivian nodded hesitantly, and Ellie pulled out her phone to call Sarah and have her come up to the Penthouse's informal kitchen. Her tone of voice ensured that Sarah was upstairs inside ten minutes. When she walked into the kitchen to see the two women sitting there, and Vivian looking nervous, Sarah got herself a coffee and took a seat at the table, looking at Ellie to find out what was going on here.

Ellie looked at Vivian, but it was obvious that she wasn't up to raising the issue with Sarah, so she turned back to Sarah "Sarah, we have a problem, you see Vivian's pregnant, and she's afraid of how angry you'll be with her."

Sarah just stared at her in shock for a couple of minutes, then asked in a voice that was hardly above a whisper "How, how did that happen?" When she saw the expression on Ellie's face at that, she snapped "Not that! Why wasn't she protected?"

Ellie shook her head "She got dragged into that world against her will and those bastards who were planning on pimping her out to make the alliances they wanted wouldn't have cared what happened to her, they would have just made her have an abortion any time she got pregnant, forcibly if necessary. The part that I hadn't considered though was that, without anyone to look out for her and tell her these things as she was growing up, Vivian never got any of the education a girl needs in matters of contraception, so she didn't know that you need to start the course of contraception at least a month ahead of starting sex for it to be effective. Without knowing any better, it looks like she believed that she could just take a pill when the time came or something. And on top of that, you remember the discussion we had before Chuck went in about how using a condom would have tipped them off, given who and what we were sure Vivian was?"

Sarah looked horrified, that events in this girl's life could have conspired to push her into a situation like this, but then other emotions crossed her face as she recalled what Ellie had said at the start. She did NOT want another woman having Chuck's children! The girls were different, they were there when she came back into Chuck's life and she truly loved them. But, Vivian was the innocent victim in this, THEY'D made Chuck go in to seduce her without making sure that they had all the details about her and her circumstances, and those bastards in Volkoff Industries had been all but holding a gun to her head to make her go along with it. She found that she could sympathise with her plight about not knowing how to protect herself against pregnancy as well, as she'd been in much the same boat before she was dragged into the CIA and forced to learn about it in a hurry, but they'd made sure that she was protected then to forestall complications. If she hadn't damaged anyone who tried to push her to have sex enough to put them in hospital when she was growing up though, she could well have ended up in this position herself.

She looked at Vivian, who still looked terrified of her, and Ellie, who looked concerned, it was obvious that she didn't want to get rid of the baby, because if she did, Ellie would have made the necessary arrangements quietly to keep the peace. She could understand what she was feeling all too well, having gone through it herself in the last year, the feeling of wonder, and terror, when she found that she had another life growing in her. No, as much as she didn't want this, she couldn't try to force her to give up her baby when none of this had been her fault, she hadn't chosen to be Alexei Volkoff's daughter, to be dragged into this world, OR to be seduced by Chuck. Sarah reached across the table to take Vivian's hand, and winced when Vivian flinched away from her, had she really terrified her that much?

Sarah took Vivian's hand gently and said "I'm sorry Vivian, it's just, this was a bit much for me to take in, especially so soon after everything that happened when your father regained his memories. Vivian, look at me, please?" Vivian looked up hesitantly "I'm sorry if I made you afraid, I'm not angry with you, the circumstances yes, but not you, none of this is your fault, can you please believe me on that?"

Vivian nodded hesitantly and Sarah went on "Just to confirm, we're having this discussion because you want to keep your baby, don't you?" Vivian nodded hesitantly again, and Sarah nodded as well "Well that's your right and I can assure you that I, we, will support you in that. I'm afraid that I can't promise to be happy about it all the time, but I will promise to do what I can to support you, will that be enough for you?"

That started the tears flowing as Vivian nodded again, and Sarah went around the table to embrace her and hold her as she cried. When Vivian had settled down, Ellie cleared her throat. "Ah, there's something else that neither of you understand as yet. I tried to tell you, Vivian, but I think you were too upset for it to register, you see we're not talking about A baby, we're talking about BABIES."

She had to give a little laugh at the mirrored 'deer in the headlights' looks she was getting from the two women. "Yes, I'm afraid that my little brother's done it again, you're having twins Vivian, just like Sarah and Tiffany did. Now, presuming that doesn't change your mind about having your babies?" Vivian looked at Sarah, who gave her a reassuring nod, so she looked back at Ellie and shook her head. "I'd like you to load the Piranha Intersect as soon as possible Vivian, we noted considerable benefits for both the mother and babies in both Sarah's and my pregnancies, and I'd like to make sure that you and your babies have the best chance possible."

Vivian looked at Sarah again, questioningly, and Sarah nodded "Yes, that would be best Vivian, it's the best way to keep you and the babies safe and reduce the chance of any complications." At that, Vivian looked back at Ellie and nodded.

Ellie hesitated and said "Sarah, can you be here when we tell Chuck, please? I think that that would make things easier for everybody." A number of emotions crossed over Sarah's face, but she nodded, and Ellie asked "Shall we get this out of the way then?" When Vivian and Sarah nodded, she picked up the phone and called to ask Chuck to come up to the Penthouse kitchen.

As expected, the news floored Chuck, and it was easy to tell what was going through his head as he cast a worried look Sarah's way. Sarah went to him and kissed him "I'm not upset with you or Vivian Chuck, I'm not happy about it, but it wasn't your fault, either of you, and as I've told Vivian, we'll support her through this, now you need to hear the rest of Vivian's story, then we need to make plans to ensure that she has everything she needs through this."

About halfway through their discussions, Chuck stopped "Oh my God, Uncle Harvey, he's going to kill me when he finds out!" Ellie couldn't hold her laughter at that in, and that set off Sarah and Vivian, as the ridiculousness of the moment was just what they needed to relieve the tension that hung over them. When she had control of herself again, Ellie said "I think you'll be able to handle Uncle Harvey Chuck, but I am worried about him, this won't be good for him at all, he's been hit with too much already. We won't be able to hide Vivian's pregnancy from him for too long, but I don't want to think about what it might do to him to know that it was you who got her pregnant….."

"It wasn't!" They all turned to Vivian, confused, when she said that. When she saw them staring at her, she continued. "It wasn't Charles Bartol, or Charles Carmichael, who got me pregnant, it was John Smith! That was who Volkoff Industries was wooing and who I was told that I had to convince to join them. John Smith was the one I took back to my rooms and slept with, and all the records show that."

Their expressions cleared when she clarified that, and they realised that she was correct, while they knew that it was Chuck, the only name mentioned anywhere was John Smith. The truth had to come out sooner or later, of course, but this would give them more time to ease Harvey into it. Vivian was surprised, to say the least, when Sarah was the first one to hug her and thank her, telling her that that was brilliant!

After they'd worked out all the details and started down the path they agreed to support Vivian through her pregnancy, they quietly filled the rest of the family in about the pregnancy, and the story that they'd be using for the foreseeable future, that John Smith had gone in to seduce Alexei Volkoff's mistress to get the Hydra device, and he'd only found out that she was his daughter afterwards, so he'd taken her out of there with him when he left to save her, and that was how she was there with them now. Vera was a little conflicted about this, but Vivian had told her about how wonderful her experience with Chuck had been, and how he'd cried when he realised that he'd seduced an innocent young woman instead of the mercenary temptress that they'd all believed her to be. She could also see how much her granddaughter wanted these babies, and knew that her son wasn't strong enough yet to handle the full truth, so she was prepared to go along with it on the basis that they'd only be keeping up this story until they were confident that he could handle the truth.

By this stage, Vera, Vivian and Harvey had moved into one of the three bedroom apartments in the building, and Vera and Vivian had also changed their names to Winters, so they had three generations, soon to be four, of the family living in that one apartment. Vivian had been planning on transferring to UCLA to finish the degrees she'd been doing at the London School of Economics, but the pregnancy made her think that she'd have to put that on hold until after the babies were born. Ellie and Sarah pointed out that she could still work on her degrees on-line though, and they used the Special Projects Group's political clout to smooth the way for her to transition her studies from traditional, into distance learning, while staying with the London School of Economics. This, and the fact that she'd been commissioned as United States Navy Ensign Vivian Winters, working as Admiral Eleanore Casey's Flag Aide and Mrs Casey's assistant in PS&T (which left Alex dedicated as her father's Aide-decamp and assistant), meant that she was keeping herself busy.

* * *

When Ellie and Dr Dreyfus indicated that they were inclined to let Harvey go along on the mission to Volkoff Industries, because he was getting control of his memories and handling everything far better than they'd expected, that made Chuck think of other possibilities about finishing off Volkoff Industries. He sat down with Harvey and Dr Dreyfus to discuss the possibility of using this opportunity more constructively, and whether Dr Dreyfus believed that Harvey was up to what he had planned.

What Chuck had in mind was the definitive deconstruction of the last dregs of the Volkoff Industries empire, and using that to get their hooks into as many of their major competitors as possible at the same time. Riley and the other 'Advisors' who had been manipulating the company and planning on pimping out Vivian would still disappear, permanently, as soon as they got what information they could out of them, but the new plan was to spread it about that Alexei Volkoff had escaped, with the assistance of a group of renegade Special Operations veterans, and had come back to recover the remains of his empire.

When Dr Dreyfus indicated that he believed that Harvey was up to this, they set Chuck's new plan into play. Casey, Bry, Vinnie, Mike and a dozen others from the support team and Casey's Combat Logistics Group turned up without warning at Volkoff Industries' head office in Moscow with a ragged and obviously aggravated Alexei Volkoff. They tore through the building like a tornado, putting down whoever tried to stop them and gathering Alexei Volkoff's loyal ex-Spetsnaz troops who still formed the core of Volkoff Industries' security forces to them as they went.

The sight of Alexei Volkoff bursting into his old office with the horsemen of the apocalypse at his heels made Riley, who'd taken over the office along with the mantle of the head of the company, almost shit himself, well he did a little. Riley jumped up from behind the desk and tried to convince Volkoff that he'd just been trying to hold things together for him until he returned, until Volkoff cut him off and screamed "WHERE'S MY DAUGHTER?"

Riley actually thought that he could talk his way out of this "What do you mean Mr Volkoff? Isn't she in London?"

Harvey, no, he WAS Alexei Volkoff then, advanced on Riley "She was, until you and the others took her out of university and brought her here to set her up to be the face of Volkoff Industries, which should mean that she was right here, running the company that she inherited, so why are YOU here in my office, and where, is, my, daughter?"

Riley tried to back away from Volkoff, but he had him trapped against the desk "I, I don't know Mr Volkoff, we were infiltrated by someone claiming to be John Smith, I don't know what happened, but he somehow charmed your daughter, so she invited him back to her quarters, but hours later the panic button in her bedroom was set off. Her bodyguard and the guards outside her quarters ran in to protect her, but they were all killed. By the time anyone else could get there, Smith and your daughter had disappeared, he must have kidnapped her, unless she went with him willingly."

Alexei stood over Riley, glaring down at him "Infiltrated, were you? That's funny, because these gentlemen (waving at Casey and Bry) work with Mr Smith, and they've told me all about how you'd been courting him as if he were the Queen of Sheba. Oh, I haven't introduced them yet, have I? This is Mr Brown (waving to Casey) and Mr White (waving to Bry). So yes, I know that you were determined to do anything and everything to get Mr Smith to join the company and shore up its reputation, including prostituting my daughter to him, and to anyone else that you wanted to use to rebuild the company as well. Yes, Vivian did leave willingly with Mr Smith, she actually begged him to rescue her in order to save herself from being prostituted out to anyone that you thought would advance your cause, and then she convinced him to get his friends here to rescue ME from captivity as well. It's funny how a third party with limited resources didn't seem to have any trouble doing that, whereas my loyal supporters, who had the resources of Volkoff Industries behind them, could have had so little success that it actually looked as though they hadn't done a thing, isn't it?"

He turned to Casey and Bry "Get him out of my sight, please, gentlemen, extract any and all information he and the others may have about what their plans for my company, and my daughter, were and then get rid of them, and please, don't be gentle!"

Casey nodded, saying "Yes Mr Volkoff!" and grabbed Riley by the scruff of the neck, digging viciously into the nerve points there. Quite aside from wanting to inflict pain on this disgusting rodent, that pain would also have the effect of rendering Riley speechless, which would serve to stop him from calling anything out to anyone else, which made it a win, win situation in his book.

As Casey was dragging Riley out, Alexei turned to his ex-Spetsnaz security people and ordered them to go with them and assist Mr Brown and the others with collecting all his ex-lieutenants, telling them that they were under Mr Brown and Mr White's orders until further notice.

Looking through the assets of Volkoff Industries, Harvey had to admit to being impressed, as Charles had been quite thorough, his ex-lieutenants' efforts to rebuild the company had squandered some of the funds, but it was mostly Charles' masterful take down that had stripped over 80% of the empire's assets away in no more than a few days. That being said, there was still around $30 billion's worth there to sell off and use to get their hooks into Volkoff Industries' competitors (which had in fact supposedly been the point of the original mission twenty years ago), so he had to get to work.

* * *

Alexei spent the next couple of months consolidating Volkoff Industries' holdings and using his competitors' secrets to force them to offer up slabs of their own businesses and sizeable amounts of money to buy what was left of Volkoff Industries. The story that was being spread about was that the strike where he was captured, which had decimated most of the company, had made it no longer viable to continue Volkoff Industries the way they'd been operating before, so he was selling off the rest of the Volkoff Industries and starting a new company which would be more involved with trading information and brokering deals.

Queries about whether the elite Spetsnaz units which had made up the backbone of the Volkoff security forces would be on the market as well were met by an angry "NYET!" which finished any discussion on that point. It also led people to the conclusion that they should be expecting there to be some rather hard negotiating done by Volkoff's new company, because there was a good reason that Volkoff's Spetsnaz units were feared around the world, they were one of the most elite fighting forces there was, private or government.

A few idiots' lust helped foster that belief when they were stupid enough to try and insist that Volkoff uphold the promises that his lieutenants had made in regard to the incentives being offered to seal the deals being made. Casey and Bry found that they had no moral dilemmas at all when they went in with Volkoff's Spetsnaz units to deal with the ones making those demands in a rather definitive manner, that in turn added to the assets that Volkoff Industries were selling off.

By the time this exercise was completed, Harvey had liquidated nearly $40 billion in assets, and people suddenly found out that the new Volkoff Enterprises would have no fixed address. This meant that Volkoff Enterprises were safe from anyone trying a physical attack, because they had no base to attack. The only personnel who had been retained from Volkoff Industries were the three elite Spetsnaz units and other elements of the security forces that were loyal to Volkoff himself. Any other staff who remained (given that many had suddenly disappeared as soon as DNA testing confirmed that those bodies which had impacted in Red Square one morning from over 1000M up had, in fact, been Riley and the other lieutenants who'd tried to take over what was left of Volkoff Industries after Alexei was captured) were either let go, or they went with the parts of the business which were sold off.

* * *

Harvey did have a laugh about one important asset that Chuck and the others hadn't discovered and taken away from Volkoff Industries, the Contessa, or as she'd been been named in the Soviet Navy, the helicopter carrier Moskva. Alexei Volkoff had blackmailed Naval officials to secretly acquire the Moskva in early 'ninety five (even though she wasn't officially decommissioned until 'ninety six), as well as taking the entire COGOG gas turbine propulsion system out of the guided missile cruiser Marshal Ustinov while it was laid up in the Baltic Sea, to have it retrofitted into the Moskva. The COGOG propulsion system gave her better speed and range than she'd had with the steam turbines and reduced the crew requirements to boot. The lower weight and placement of the gas turbines and reducing the height and weight of the superstructure meant that she wasn't being thrown about in heavy seas as much as she'd been with the previous configuration, and they'd also enclosed the lower deck at the stern to make her more sea worthy, so all in all, she was a better ship than she'd been when the navy had her.

Alexei Volkoff had kept the Contessa separate from Volkoff Industries, using her as his own secret base of operations and the home base for his personal Spetsnaz units and helicopter wing. Due to Alexei's paranoia, not even Riley and the other lieutenants had known about the Contessa, and those loyal to Alexei had kept her a secret, even after he and Vivian had disappeared, because they'd still been trying to locate and recover them. Riley and the other lieutenants hadn't had the courage to try to force anything out of these people, as they'd been afraid of them, given that Alexei's loyalists still controlled Volkoff Industries' security forces.

What this meant was that they were free to keep using the Contessa as a base safely, and while they were in Moscow with 'Alexei', Casey, Bry and Vinnie had spent a lot of time evaluating Alexei's Spetsnaz units and the rest of the people on the Contessa. The results of these evaluations were that they agreed that these people were not only totally loyal to Alexei, but they WEREN'T the rabid dogs of a psychopath that they'd quite frankly been afraid that they'd find them to be, they were rational and honourable military people, so the men and women on the Contessa became part of the Special Projects crew, even though they weren't aware of that yet.

* * *

When Alexei wound up the affairs of Volkoff Industries, he conspicuously boarded one of the G550s waiting for him and his security team, and disappeared. They took over the air traffic control systems and took them off air long enough for the business jets to land at the airstrip outside Moscow where the HyperNova and VTOL Medium were waiting, Harvey and all the security personnel were quickly transferred to the other aircraft and all four aircraft took off again as quickly as possible. As soon as HN3 and VM05 were clear, the air traffic control systems were brought back up, so the G550s showed up again. When the jets were met at the airport where they landed though, the people trying to grab Alexei Volkoff were surprised to find nothing but video cameras recording everyone who entered the planes. This spawned further action down the track when they went after the people behind that attempt.

HN3 headed straight back to California from Moscow, but VM05 delivered the Volkoff Spetsnaz troops to the Contessa. Bry and Casey went with them to talk to the people in charge on the Contessa, as 'Alexei' had designated the two of them as his military commanders, with authority over all forces, so they were making a start on setting up the chain of command to tie the people of the Contessa into the Special Projects organisation.

When they got back to Edwards, they transferred to VM02 and headed back to Quixote House, Ellie and Dr Dreyfus grabbed Harvey as soon as he arrived to check him out and see how he'd handled being Alexei Volkoff again for a couple of months, and when the tests were winding down and all coming up positive, Ellie ducked out to call Vivian and Vera to come down, as she wanted him right there where they could deal with any fallout when he saw that his daughter was pregnant.

* * *

Alexei was surprised to see that Vivian was pregnant, but he wasn't shocked, in fact he seemed quite calm when he raised his head to speak to the cameras "Charles, I know that you're John Smith, between the troops' physical description and my daughter's description of the person she was with, there was no question who it was, can we sit down and discuss this, please?"

Chuck and Sarah walked in within ten minutes and Ellie waved them all into the apartment. Harvey looked a little bemused when Sarah took Vivian's hand with a smile and they walked in together, but he didn't say a word, just followed them in. Inside the apartment, Sarah, Vivian and Chuck sat on the couch, with Vivian in the middle, and Harvey, Vera and Ellie took the armchairs, Dr Dreyfus took a seat at the table.

When Chuck went to speak, Vivian stopped him, turning to her father "Papa, what we told you before was the truth, we only left out the fact that Chuck was John Smith, and that we found out that I was pregnant a couple of months ago because we didn't know how you'd handle it, we were going to tell you, but we didn't want to hit you with too much at once."

Harvey nodded, and looked at Chuck "I'm sorry Charles, but I have to ask this, did you know that Vivian was my daughter when you went to Moscow?"

Chuck shook his head "No Uncle Harvey, we believed that Vivian had been your favourite mistress, and that was why I was talked into going there to seduce her in an attempt to get the location of the Hydra device from her. She did tell me that she was your daughter when I met her, but I didn't know whether that was the truth, whether it was something that she'd been told to groom her to take over, or whether she was in fact your daughter, but she'd been groomed to become a monster like Alexei Volkoff, so I continued with the seduction mission to get the Hydra device before it could be used against our family."

Vivian took over again "Papa, Chuck, or rather John, did make a suggestion about sweetening the deal, but it was my decision to ask him back to my rooms, because I was terrified about what was going to happen to me when they started sending me to do whatever those other men wanted, and I could sense that he was different, so I desperately wanted my first time to be with someone nice, like him. It WAS wonderful….." She stopped and looked at Sarah in embarrassment, but Sarah squeezed her hand and gave her a reassuring smile, she gave her a grateful smile back and turned back to her father "But do you know what he did when he realised that I wasn't what he'd believed me to be?"

When her father shook his head, she went on "He cried, I came out of the happy daze he'd left me in to find him sitting on the floor, crying over what he'd done to me because I wasn't the evil bitch that all the indications, including my own behaviour up until we went to bed, had led him to expect I was."

"That's why I'm feeling so guilty now, he gave me an experience that most women could never hope to have, even though he thought he was just trying to get something dangerous away from evil people, and now I've got a piece of him growing inside of me. Sarah forgave me for sleeping with her husband, and THEN she forgave me for getting pregnant to him, even though if I'd had half a brain I would have made sure that I was on contraceptives the moment they told me that I'd have to sleep with any pervert that they told me to. I didn't deserve to be forgiven like that."

Sarah tried to stop her but she cut her off "No! Ellie was right! I'm supposed to be smart, but when they told me that I'd be sleeping with whoever they told me to or else, I didn't even try to find out what I needed to do to protect myself against getting pregnant. Instead of thinking like the rational person I'm supposed to be, I just curled up and refused to think about it until Chuck turned up and I thought 'he's nice, I'm sure that he won't be like any of the others, maybe if the first time with him is nice, the rest of them won't be as bad', so I dragged him to my quarters and put on that disgusting negligee that was worst than being naked because it just emphasised the parts it supposedly covered and came out to try and convince him have sex with me!"

She broke down and started crying at that point and Sarah put her arms around her, holding her as she spoke softly "Shssh, you've missed a few things there Honey, like the fact that we specifically sent Chuck to seduce you, and we didn't really stop to consider that you could be anything but Volkoff's mistress, and the fact that you never had anyone to explain to you about contraception, well I do know what that was like because I was the same way when I was dragged into the CIA, the only difference there was that they ensured that I was put on contraception and understood the medical issues involved to prevent it impacting on my performance. You and Chuck were the victims here Honey, no-one really gave either of you a choice, he was talked into it as his duty to protect his family, and you were just plain forced into it, so none of this is your fault!" She pulled Vivian's face up to look at her "I told you back when we found out that you were pregnant that we'd support you, and we will, you're family, even more so now, so no more stupid guilt, OK?"

Vivian nodded and buried her face in her shoulder. Sarah smoothed her hair and looked at Harvey "There's another thing, I'm afraid, Harvey, you're not going to have one grandchild, you're going to have two. Tiffany had twin girls, I had a girl and a boy, and Vivian's having twins as well." He shook his head with a smile "It just keeps getting better."

That made Vivian lift her teary face from Sarah's shoulder to look at him, but her vision was too bleary from the tears to see him properly "Are you ashamed of me Papa?"

At first, he couldn't do more than stare at her in shock, saying "What?", but he quickly recovered and crossed to kneel in front of her "NO! I'd never be ashamed of you, and as Sarah's tried to tell you, you haven't done anything wrong." He looked at Chuck "Either of you!"

"I will admit that I don't know how we're going to work this, but we'll sort it out, together, I promise!"

She wiped at her tears and managed a little smile for him "Most of it's already worked out Papa, Grandma's been looking after me, and so have Ellie, Sarah, Chuck, everyone really. Ellie and Sarah got me transferred to distance learning with the School of Economics so I can finish my degrees, though it will take me at least a year longer now, and I'm working with Ellie as her aide, though I think that's more so she can keep an eye on me and make sure I'm following my doctor's orders. So things are OK as far as that goes, we were more worried about how you'd take this, finding out that your teenage daughter is pregnant to a married man….."

That last got her swatted by Sarah "Hey, that was a joke!"

"Oh, sorry, next time tell us it's a joke first so we'll know to laugh!"

The mock glare she gave Sarah faded to a smile, and Sarah smiled back as she stood up "Well I'm glad we got that sorted out, but some of us have to go back to work, I'm afraid."


	25. What Just Happened?

**Once more for the cheap seats. If you want to post a review, don't try and hide behind 'anonymous reviews', I just delete things where pathetic trolls are ashamed to say what they think under their own names. Was that you Marc? It had your 'style'. Don't worry kids, unlike some people, I only bite in response to an attack, so if you don't attack, I won't retaliate. You have your right to an opinion, whether or not I agree or think it's stupid.  
**

 **I think** **Moaning Myrtle** **pissing me off enough to act on this 'If you feel as strongly about her story as you do why not let her know instead of dealing with your dissatisfaction indirectly?' when he said it actually did me a favour, because it's made me face the fact that I've had it with** **him and the other** **self righteous tools on this site** **,** **and how their only response to any comment is a personal attack** **.**

 **I'll try to wind up the story here** **(as we're getting into the final se** **ason** **and there isn't much** **more** **to work** **with** **anyway)** **and then** **I'll be** **think** **ing** **long and hard about** **whether to** **giv** **e** **up on this site and going back to** **the steampunk world,** **because** **it's rather more** **grown up** **and civil** **there. W** **hile** **there are** **still** **a few** **in the writers' forums there who** **will** **throw tantrums when people don't tell them that everything they do is wonderful,** **no matter how bad it is** **, most of us accept** **constructive criticism** **in the spirit intended** **and try to improve** **, not like here, and people don't throw abuse around they way they do here either** **.**

 **Yeah, I know, they never actually said that Hartley's Mum was an agent in the show, but can you think of a better explanation for why this little old Grannie had machine guns, grenades and plastic explosives and knew how to use them, or why her son was a brilliant scientist working with Stephen on a top secret project?**

 **As far as the timeline goes, we're effectively around the end of season four, but only three years have elapsed in this story.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this isn't real, it's made up.**

It took another day or two of discussions, but in the end all those who were involved with Vivian and her pregnancy had reached a point where they could accept the circumstances. Many of them weren't happy about the circumstances, Vivian wasn't happy that she was having the children of a man she could never have, Sarah wasn't happy that Vivian was having her husband's children, Chuck wasn't happy that Vivian was pregnant as a result of the fact that he'd been convinced that he had to seduce her, and Harvey and Vera weren't happy that their eighteen year old daughter and granddaughter (respectively) had been seduced by and was having twins to a man that she wasn't in a relationship with, but they all understood and accepted the circumstances that had led up to this.

* * *

When they'd all returned from Russia, they sat down to discuss what Harvey, Casey and Bry (and to a lesser degree the others who went with them) had discovered. They started with the good, Harvey, as Alexei, had made almost $40 billion from selling off the remaining Volkoff Industries assets and the other assets they'd acquired. He'd also acquired a stake in the majority of the significant players in the world's illicit arms industry by blackmailing them into signing over a big enough piece of the business for them to be in the loop on any major dealings as part of the price for the Volkoff and other assets he'd sold off.

Harvey also explained about the Contessa, her history as the Soviet helicopter carrier, how she'd been upgraded and converted to effectively become one of the first super-yachts and how she was registered as a research vessel, but actually served as his secret base as well as the home of his elite security forces.

Casey, Bry and the others went over their findings in regard to the people who made up the ex-spetsnaz units and helicopter wing on the Contessa, along with the rest of the ship's crew and complement, and other loyal personnel, such as Gertrude Verbanski, who'd been one of the KGB's top operatives, along with Ilsa Trinchina and the operatives known only as Barbara and Jasmine, who were all extremely competent operatives as well. The fact that they were comfortable with all of these people was quite a surprise, but a welcome one.

While they were all happy about what they'd come away from Volkoff Industries with though, the intel that Casey, Bry and Vinnie got from Riley and the others before they were dropped into Red Square from a great height was rather worrying, especially what they'd gotten out of Riley. It turned out that Riley had been one of Langston Graham's off the books CIA agents who had been inserted with Alexei Volkoff to act as his handler. Initially, Riley had been given a number of Intersect trigger words and phrases that he could use to help him keep Volkoff under control, but the brain degeneration caused by the Agent-X Intersect (especially after it had been interfered with by Ted Roark) progressively reduced the effectiveness of those triggers until it was no longer safe to try and use them, as they'd become more likely to trigger a psychotic episode. By then though, Riley had been in a position where he had little trouble manipulating Volkoff into doing most things he wanted him to, as evidenced by the way he'd manipulated him to authorise getting rid of Vivian's mother.

Volkoff Industries' other lieutenants hadn't had Riley's direct links to Graham, but they'd all been Riley's selections, back in the days when he could use the Intersect triggers to influence Volkoff's decisions, so they were all loyal to Riley, rather than Volkoff. Casey and the others did manage to extract a lot of useful information from them, but it was Riley who had provided most of the background of what had been going on, as well as the most chilling of the intel.

* * *

A few months after this, most of them had to go back to D.C. again for another round of promotions and Aunt D's removal from the Special Projects structure, as well as her induction into her new role. What it came down to was that the total destruction of Volkoff Industries had generated almost as much notoriety as the way they took down the Ring had, so politics demanded that the United States government and the military show proper recognition for their achievements, just as other countries were doing. The result of this was that most of them received more medals, and their flag officers, including Aunt D, were all pushed up a grade (Chuck became a full Admiral, Ellie Vice Admiral, Sarah Lieutenant General, Emma Rear Admiral, and Mary and Casey Major Generals), Bry was also pushed up to a Brigadier General in the Army to replace Aunt D in their string of Flag Officers.

The reason for Bry's promotion was that while this new round of promotions was being organised, the DNI made a rather public error that was effectively political suicide, so wrangling began in earnest over his replacement, but nearly every candidate had vehement opposition from some quarter, until Aunt D's name was put forward. Her long tenure as the head of the group that everyone was currently falling over themselves to be seen rewarding, and her part in many of the on-going achievements of that group were sufficient to provide the impetus to steamroller over any opposition to her nomination. This resulted in her pending promotion to Lieutenant General being pushed to full General and her removal from the roles she held within the Special Projects Group structure (most notably being replaced by Sarah as the Deputy Director of the group). Once all that was done, her nomination as the DNI was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and General Diane Beckman became the United States' new Director of National Intelligence.

They had the usual round of promotion and award ceremonies in the Oval Office, followed by the dinner in the White House Dining room and, of course, the usual explanations about who everyone was at the dinner. There was at least one change, as it was the new Secretary of the Army who was asking this time, rather than the Secretary of the Navy as it had been at the last two dinners, but his eyes were just as wide as he was being told about the family connections between the core officers, that the very tall, stunning brunette twins were actually Admiral Carmichael's daughters and that the toddlers they were holding most of the time weren't theirs, they were their little brother and sister (this last could only be explained after the Secretary of Defense managed to stop laughing at the shocked and scandalised expression on the Secretary of the Army's face after the very married Admiral Carmichael openly kissed one of these girls in front of everyone).

* * *

After the ceremonies, they headed back to Joint Base Andrews for the flight home. This trip was the first time they were using the new VTOL/STOL Supersonic Light (VSL) aircraft. After the operation to take down Volkoff Industries was concluded, 'the twelve' had had time to stop and think about things, and they decided/agreed that there was a serious gap in the group's transport options. The HyperNovas could carry thirty odd people plus a couple of vehicles the way they were normally configured and cruise at nearly Mach 5, but they required a full sized airport when loaded up. The VTOL/STOL craft could land and take off just about anywhere and could carry up to the capacity of a C5 Galaxy (the VHs) if necessary, but while their max cruise speed of around Mach 1 was impressive by most standards, it made for a long trip across the world, and with their European stations and their new base on the Contessa, they were doing those trips all too often.

What 'the twelve' brain trust came up with was a development of the VTOL/STOL flying platform. The initial UAV flight prototype was the length of the VTOL Lights, but a much more slender fuselage, and using the same engines, plasma emitters and the like, it could land and take off anywhere, but it could cruise at Mach 2.5. The success of the prototype excited them enough to leap into building the VSL airframe before they'd even finished updating the designs. The VSL was the length of the VTOL Medium, but with the more slender design it'd only carry maybe thirty people. Still, carrying thirty people at Mach 2.5 and being able to land anywhere was nothing to be sneezed at! They also updated the designs for the VTOL Supersonic Heavy (VSH). Once again, this design was the same length as the VTOL Heavy, but they'd only have about the same capacity as a DC-8-73. They'd cruise at Mach 2.5 with the VH's engines and plasma emitters, and like the VHs, they could land on the Contessa if you cleared enough room on the helicopter deck for them (the VMs had no trouble, so neither would the VSLs). The team were quite looking forward to seeing the VSH aircraft operational.

The inaugural flight of VSL1 went quite well, taking them to and from D.C. in under half the time that the VMs did, there wasn't as much room to move about, but more than halving the time served to reduce the need to do so fairly well. Just as they'd done with Sonic, the twelve went and retrofitted the UAV flight prototype into a tandem two seater aircraft once VSL1 was flying, and this quickly became quite handy, because they'd just started having to have a LOT of urgent (and secret) meetings with DCIA Preston over the activities of a group of old-school senior CIA people who appeared to be trying to follow through on Graham's, or the Ring's, or both, plans, and the one to watch in that group seemed to be a shady character by the name of Clyde Decker, who'd been doing Langston Graham and others' dirty work for decades.

* * *

The re-purposed VS UAV was tagged 'Wraith' because it was small and quiet enough to bring into most places without people realising that it had arrived, so Chuck (generally) could put it down on the roof of the CIA building and get in to see the DCIA without most people being any the wiser. Sneaking into the CIA was made easier by the fact that Chuck, as CIA Special Agent Jacob Bowman, was in fact a legitimate CIA agent now, because one of the new DCIA's first tasks had been to have the new Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service (Roan Montgomery) create a special group reporting only to him and the DCIA which had the Special Projects team's people in it.

The old order had been quite put out when Preston was appointed Acting DCIA, and then confirmed by the Senate, because he disrupted most of their plans (which had been the whole point, really). The first thing the new DCIA did was throw out ALL of the staff in the Executive Office, everyone close to the DCIA's office/position basically, and replace them with people he knew and trusted, making sure that every one of them knew to come straight to him if anyone started coming on to them or after them, or tried to pressure them in any way, letting them know quietly that he had resources outside of the CIA who could look after them.

What this meant was that everyone in the CIA's Executive Office were loyal to HIM, and were also relatively safe from being compromised. (The only crossovers were the Deputy Director of the CIA, who they'd had enough confidence in to leave in place, and the fact that Roan had been appointed as the Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service, as Director Preston had had enough confidence in his previous Deputy to elevate him to Director of the National Clandestine Service when he was made Acting DCIA, but they wanted someone they could trust in place to watch what was happening within the operational side of the CIA.)

It didn't take long to get the procedure established, Chuck (usually) would arrive and the DCIA's assistant would send him straight in unless someone else was in there. If there WAS someone in with the DCIA, Chuck would get stashed away in a meeting room until they'd left.

* * *

The problem that they had was that, even with control of the CIA in the right hands now, the other side still had their own people and back channels in place to carry on with their plans, and they were running a good end game behind the backs of the people running the CIA. It took Roan nearly four months to reliably identify activities that were proceeding in the background within the CIA, and this was with him very much on his game (he'd loaded the Piranha Intersect, cut back his drinking and other questionable activities quite a bit and was motivated to do his best to protect his daughter and the rest of the 'family').

It was only after he'd checked and re-checked what was going on in the NCS a few times that he started to identify irregularities that he could advise the DCIA of and take to the others. They were also hampered by the fact that while they had a good relationship with the CIA's Deputy Director of Analysis, as the CIA had been relying on them like everyone else for the past sixteen years, she wasn't one of them and they couldn't rely on her. Of course, the fact that Chuck and his tech team could access ANYTHING on-line that the CIA had helped them get around that little problem.

While they were investigating the clues and scraps of information that Roan managed to dig out, the name that came to the fore was Clyde Decker, he wasn't the most senior of the ones they were looking into, but he was certainly the slimiest! Chuck had gone through what they'd extracted from the CIA's backup archives, and the reports of what Decker had done for Graham and others were quite disturbing, and sickening, as it didn't appear that there was anything he wouldn't do without question.

The legend of Sarah as the Enforcer, the Ice Queen, had been growing ever since she'd been in training in ninety eight, due to the way she was blitzing everyone else and setting records right, left and centre, and people were already starting to be afraid of her in ninety nine, because as soon as she started going on missions, her mission reports were confirming what those who'd seen her in training had been saying, that no-one could stand up to the Ice Queen. The thing that was coming out as Chuck went through the archived records which was worrying him though, was that while the Ice Queen, Graham's legendary Enforcer, had been famous for doing what no-one else could do, Decker was infamous as the one that did what no-one else WOULD do. In the world of the morally handicapped, Clyde Decker was known as the one who'd do what no-one else could force themselves to do without blinking an eye, and the idea of being up against something like that was rather disturbing.

* * *

They found out that the other side, whoever they were, still held a few trump cards that they hadn't been expecting at Carina and Leslie's wedding though. About a month after the last round of promotions, Carina discovered that all the damage that had been done to her down there through all the rapes and sexual abuse she'd been forced to endure since she was eleven must have been repaired by the PI, because she was about three months pregnant. While neither she or Leslie were at all religious, as soon as they discovered that, they immediately agreed that they wanted to get married before she started showing, so the girls all leapt into organising their wedding.

A quick phone call to Vera Wang had her demanding that, more than agreeing that, she do the outfits for the new wedding, because these people were nothing if not interesting and she'd had a great time dealing with them for their double wedding. This one wasn't going to be a military wedding, as Leslie's rank was mainly a formality, so that simplified things a little, but the fact that they really wanted to have their wedding in a matter of weeks to ensure that they beat the baby bump was pushing it. Luckily the VSLs worked quite well to shuttle the girls back and forth across the country, and half of them had at least a couple of meetings a week in Washington anyway, so there was no trouble getting them over there for the fittings.

Ellie and the others rushed around like headless chickens for a couple of weeks, but then they started to breath a sigh of relief, once they had the dresses, the wedding venue, the celebrant (they didn't have time to jump through all the church's hoops, especially considering the fact that Carina was already pregnant), and the guests all sorted. The only guests coming over from D.C. this time were Aunt D and Roan, but Roan was giving away the bride, so he HAD to be there. There were a few agents and special ops people coming in from overseas, but they were all being flown in at least a day ahead, so the bride and groom weren't worrying too much about that.

When the day came, it dawned fine and clear, to which everyone breathed a sigh of relief, as worry was starting to turn Carina into Bridezilla. All of the 'family' were at the wedding, including Vivian with John and Josef. As their doctor (and the twins' Aunt), Ellie had been dubious about bringing them to an outside function like this when they were only a week old, but the way Vivian's face dropped when she started to say that made her turn it around and make the arrangements for them to be taken to and from the wedding venue and keeping them out of the sun and wind.

* * *

The ceremony was simple but beautiful, and they were relaxing and laughing around the wooden parquet dance floor that had been laid on the lawn when any of them who had the PI heard something to make them worry, the racing diesel engines and other sounds that were indicative of a number of Light Armoured Vehicles (LAVs) being driven hard. There was no doubt in the minds of those who recognised what they were hearing that these were coming for them, so they leapt into action, the bride and groom, Sarah, Ellie and Vivian with the kids, Lottie and Charlie, Emma and Molly, Stefan and as many other other non-combatants who would fit were rushed into VSL1 and it lifted off, immediately dropping over the edge of the cliff and racing away before the LAVs arrived, keeping out of sight below the cliff line. Chuck and John were, of course, reminded about what would happen to them if they did anything stupid and got themselves hurt as their wives and family were being hustled away.

Back at the wedding venue, any non-combatant guests left were directed to get down and out of the way while pistols, sub-machineguns, assault rifles and grenade launchers were distributed to the combatants (the family never went anywhere without being prepared for an altercation). Chuck saw the LAVs just before they crashed through the gates and fence and identified them, calling out to Roan "Roan! They're SAD!" That news made any trace of the charmer or buffoon disappear from Roan's face as he and the CIA SAD guests quickly moved forward to stand beside Chuck.

As the LAVs came to crash stops on the lawn and their heavily armed occupants piled out to take up positions covering the wedding guests, Chuck could feel Roan winding up to an explosion beside him, but when a suited figure exited one of the LAVs and strutted forward Chuck froze, because it was Clyde Decker! Decker put a bullhorn to his mouth "We're here to take the criminal and escaped federal fugitive Laszlo Mahnovski into custody, anyone opposing us will be considered to be committing an act of treason and shot! You are authorised to shoot to kill!" (This last was obviously for the CIA's SAD operatives.)

Chuck was quite impressed that Roan managed to make every man there hear him WITHOUT any device to assist him "Under what authority and who's orders are you acting here?" Decker started going for his pistol before he realised the same thing all the CIA's SAD operatives did and froze, that this man was in fact the Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service, who the CIA's SAD operatives and agents reported through.

Decker of course knew that nothing about this operation was legitimate, but there were only a few others in the SAD force who knew that. Now that they'd identified Roan Montgomery, as well as Smith, Brown, White and a pile of SAD and ex-SAD operatives in front of them, the SAD operatives were all lowering their weapons. Decker wasn't paying attention to anything but Roan Montgomery though, and realising that the operation was starting to fall apart, he decided to take out Montgomery and claim that he was defending himself against an unknown assailant to get control of the situation again. He wasn't part of the special operations elite and therefore didn't recognise any of the special ops legends and SAD operatives he was facing here, so he was couldn't see why his plan to kill Montgomery and then hit the dirt, letting the CIA's SAD operatives take out of the rest of them when they started to shoot back, wouldn't work.

Of course as he raised his pistol, what Decker didn't realise was that;  
a) He had no hope of getting a shot off against half of these people, and;  
b) Now that the SAD operatives knew who it was that they were facing, none of them was going to do ANYTHING until they had a lawful order from the proper authorities, which in the current situation was in fact Roan Montgomery.

As Decker's pistol cleared the holster, Chuck called out "Stop! Drop it! Drop the gun!" He kept calling for Decker to stop until Decker started aiming at Roan, then quickly brought the SR-3 Vikhr in his hand up to blow Decker's gun hand shoulder apart with a 9x39mm round. The SAD operatives snorted at seeing that shot, they'd watched him try to use words to stop Decker until he started lining up his shot, then took him out with a non lethal snap shot from 30M away with the close quarters assault rifle he'd been holding down at his side before Decker could pull the trigger. Oh, yeah! That was Smith alright!

Roan nodded to Decker, indicating that someone should see to him, and SAD medics ran forward to do so, clearing away any weapons before they started working on him. The others who'd been in on this with Decker had missed the details of what happened before Decker got shot and were screaming at the SAD operatives to attack, so Roan nodded again, grim faced, and the SAD operatives disarmed them and took them into custody.

* * *

While he was pretty sure what the answer would be, Chuck pulled out his phone and called Director Preston to ask whether he'd authorised this SAD strike on U.S. soil? Preston was of course stunned and assured him that he'd known nothing about it. Director Preston asked him to wait while he called the Director and Deputy Director of the NCS to find out whether they'd authorised it and advised the DNI about this, but Chuck told him not to worry about calling the Deputy Director as he was here, he'd been giving away the bride, and the DNI had been there too, so she knew. That made Preston pause, and then he said that be back as soon as he called the Director of the NCS.

While Chuck was waiting, Decker and the other four men were dragged over, screaming in pain (Decker) or screaming threats (the others), so Casey barked at the SAD operatives to gag them. That was done by the time that Director Preston came back to tell Chuck that Director of the NCS had assured him that he had no knowledge of this either, and he was inclined to believe him. He asked Chuck what had happened, and Chuck told him that two of their people had been getting married, and that the ceremony had finished and they were having an outdoor reception when they heard LAVs coming, so they got the wedding party and as many non-combatants as they could away before they went to face whoever was coming in.

It had been a surprise to see that their attackers were CIA SAD, but the DD NCS and existing CIA SAD operatives among the guests moved front and centre to be seen and recognised. The next surprise was when the one in charge of the raid showed himself, as it was Clyde Decker. Director Preston growled at that, and asked how soon Decker could be returned for questioning? The SAD operatives in earshot were taken aback when Chuck looked down at the five bound and gagged men at his feet and said "I'm sorry Director Preston, Decker was one of the five men who were killed in the engagement" but that didn't stop them knocking a few of them out with rifle buts to the head when they started thrashing about and trying to make themselves heard.

He and the director talked for a bit more, but Chuck stopped as he looked around at the damage that had been caused, and he mentioned that it would need to be made good. Director Preston promised to make sure that everything was be repaired to the owners' satisfaction, but stopped as he wondered aloud 'how the hell can we explain something like this though?' Chuck snorted "It's L.A. Director, people have seen so much stupid shit being done by the studios and actors that it shouldn't be hard to convince people that some idiot actors destroyed the wrong property by mistake, just say the first vehicle turned the wrong way and then ploughed into the first place that looked like what the set was supposed to be, and the rest just followed them without questioning it. You'll have to get another site set up somewhere nearby to look enough like this to support the story, but that shouldn't be too hard with the CIA's resources."

The Director laughed "That might just work! Sometimes you've gotta love Hollywood. Thank you Admiral, I'll get the Special Agent in Charge from Los Feliz out there to deal with the owners as quickly as I can, we'll handle it the way you've suggested." The moment he'd disconnected the call though, the laughter disappeared and Chuck ordered the five men loaded into one of their vans, which took off with Casey, Mary, Bry and Zondra. Chuck told the rest of the SAD operatives to get out of there in the LAVs and not to mention anything about the men who had been taken away. The look he had in his eye as he said that last left little doubt in their minds about what they may expect if they opened their mouths, they'd all heard stories about what Smith could do when he was forced to, and none of them wanted to take the risk of being on the receiving end of THAT if even part of it was true.

* * *

When five bodies turned up unexpectedly at the city coroner's office looking as though they'd been at the wrong end of a firefight a few hours later, no-one questioned where they'd come from, the autopsies were done, showing that they'd died of gunshot wounds, and then they were immediately cremated in accordance to the instructions on record. The CIA got copies of the records, and four of the men were recognisable from the photos but Decker's face had been blown off by a shot which appeared to have hit him while he was looking back over his shoulder (according to the autopsy report).

Director Preston knew that he was wasn't getting anything close to the whole story here, and was more than a little suspicious of the way those autopsies had been done as soon as they arrived, and then the bodies had been immediately cremated, but he also knew that the only way he was going to get the story was if Admiral Carmichael chose to tell him. He had to concede that if someone like Decker had come after HIS family with a SAD team that big, geared up for war the way they were, he would have been taking extreme measures as well.

As soon as Roan was back in Langley, Director Preston requested a meeting with him to find out how Decker, or the ones behind Decker, had managed to organise that big a SAD strike on U.S. Soil without the knowledge of either the Director or Deputy Director of the NCS. Once Roan was in his office and they were both satisfied that the electronic counter measures that they'd activated were sufficient to defeat any bugs that may have eluded detection, Director Preston started by asking how he was associated with the bride and this group.

Roan looked at him for a moment and decided to share the story, leaning back as he started talking. "I first met the bride when she was in CIA training about fifteen years ago, like Agent Walker she'd been dragged into this business by Langston Graham as a young girl, only sixteen or seventeen. Graham traded her to the DEA a couple of years later, but the then Agent Miller and I have crossed paths many times over the years, both on operations that we were both brought into, and when we've happened to meet off mission. I've always liked and admired her, so when she asked me if I'd give her away, I was thrilled to do so. As for the Admiral and the rest of them, I've known Admirals Carmichael and Casey since they were children, and their parents and godparents as well, so I've been associated with the Special Projects Group people from the start."

The Director thanked him for sharing that, and then asked about the SAD strike at the wedding and how it had been organised without their knowledge. Roan explained what they'd found out, that the players in the CIA had had their associates and minions organise everything off the books and showed the SAD teams paperwork that looked legitimate, the final step had been to have their people in the SAD handle the orders for the teams.

He also brought up that Decker claimed that they were there to capture a CIA scientist who'd been kept in a bunker and forced to work on Graham's projects against his will, but that man had escaped and disappeared years ago, so they were presuming that it was just an attack on the Special Projects Group, and told him about Decker's shoot to kill order, along with the agreed story that Decker and the four others had been put down when they started firing at the wedding guests, while the other SAD operatives had lowered their weapons when they recognised the people who were there.

Director Preston put aside the charade and asked whether they'd gotten enough from the men to tell how far through the CIA this had spread, and Roan smiled, as none of them had thought for a minute that he'd miss what was going on. "Not from the four who were part of the SAD, no, but we've got some useful intel from Decker, unfortunately some of them appear to be quite senior, the Special Projects people are investigating them now."

The Director looked worried at that "Not my Deputy or the NCS Director I hope?"

Roan shook his head "No sir, they both seem to be clean, as far as we can see so far."

Director Preston sagged back into his seat in relief, then asked "Are you available to come explain the incident to the DNI with me?"

Roan looked confused at that, saying "You know that she was there, don't you?"

The DCIA nodded "Yes, I know that she was at the wedding, but not during the incident, and no-one who wasn't at the wedding should know that she was there, so it would be expected for us to provide a report of what happened to her."

Roan smiled at that, Charles was right about this man, he was no fool "Yes sir, let me know when the meeting is and I will make myself available."

* * *

With that, they wound up the meeting and Roan headed back to his office, his smile fading as he thought about what they'd discussed back at the Dungeon while the others were extracting information from the five they brought back. They still had Decker and were working on him, but they were fairly sure that he didn't have the piece of intel that they desperately wanted at the moment either, that being which of the twelve had betrayed Leslie and the rest of them. Other than the core team, only the twelve had any chance of knowing who Leslie really was, and where he'd be that day, so the fact that Decker had raided his wedding and asked for him by his real name was a pretty clear indication that one of the ten who had been brought in by Stefan had leaked that information.

Chuck and his tech team were now concentrating on tracing the backgrounds and communications of the ten scientists. When they were initially talking about who it could be, the tech team had been considered as well, but the only ones on the tech team who knew Leslie's real name were Chuck, Jeff and Anna, and while Anna had been with Pete for nearly two years now, she certain that she'd never discussed Leslie's background, and for that matter Chuck, Jeff, Anna, Sarah and Carina were all certain that they could trust him. It HAD to be one of the ten who were brought in, but the question was how they could identify who it was?

In the end it wasn't too hard, because when Chuck went through the CIA's archives, they found that Graham had had one of them grabbed around the time that Stefan disappeared to replace Stefan, but he'd proven too unstable and went crazy when he was brought into the same type of environment as Laszlo was kept in, so they'd released him. Apparently he was so afraid of what Graham had threatened him with that he'd kept telling Graham and his successors anything he knew about Stefan and the rest of them for stop them doing it to him. Luckily Stefan's paranoia had been so rampant through that period that he never let any of the people he was working with know where he was, so the man's betrayal hadn't gotten him caught, and the man's speciality was structural design, so while he'd shared their airframe designs with the CIA, he never had access to the rest of the designs or components (only Chuck, Stefan and Leslie had access to everything), so the CIA only had a small part of what they'd created as a team, and that wasn't enough to make anything useful.

Unfortunately, the man had been holding back when he worked with Dr Dreyfus, and his underlying fears and issues were still there in force, so when they went to arrest him, to question him and find out what he'd passed on to the CIA about the family, he killed himself rather than endure whatever it was that Graham and the others had been threatening him with.

* * *

That incident was very sobering, and there wasn't much joy in the family for a while, the only thing that was guaranteed to get a smile from everyone was the kids. At just over 1, Zena and Piotr were both chatterboxes (something that Sarah always made a point of stressing came from their father), and Johanna was starting to talk almost as much (Ellie couldn't blame that on John, as that trait definitely came from her side of the family), Molly was a happy and loud four year old as well. At least Johnny and Joey were still a fair way off talking, but they were just over a month old, and Sarah actually had some good bonding moments with Vivian when she laughingly warned her that she had this to look forward to when they couldn't shut the twins up.

* * *

The thoughts that they couldn't get out of their heads about Geoffrey and what had almost happened because his fears made him betray them made them eagerly embrace the mission when the NSA came to them with concerns about a new virus that they'd been hearing chatter about, the Omen virus. Seeing the tech team go pale when they were told that it was capable of erasing a hundred zetabytes of data per second gave the others the idea that it was serious, but it was only when Chuck explained that that meant that it theoretically could wipe out every database in the world in about five seconds that they grasped HOW serious it was.

The NSA forwarded what intel they had and the team went to work. Jeff, as their expert on extracting information from the code, went through the samples that they had and came up with some tags that allowed them to identify the designer, he also saw signs that the virus was some sort of binary system, and the two parts would be needed to be combined for it to work.

Once the virus' designer was identified, it didn't take long to track him down in what appeared to be a cult commune in the back of Massachusetts. Apparently he was only comfortable staying close to what he knew, as he was Boston born and bred, and an MIT alumni to boot. When they first started using satellite imagery to look for the man in the compound, they burst out laughing, as it appeared to be some sort of nudist colony, but the bickering and laughter about who'd be going in faded when they started taking in the security systems that they had in place, and saw the paramilitary guards, this place wasn't what it seemed to be, at all!

A suggestion that Chuck was the most logical one to go in was vetoed by Sarah (and more quietly, Vivian) on the basis that he was a father and wasn't going into a hornet's nest like that, and he was too recognisable as Charles Carmichael, a very public figure, anyway. To shortcut the process Anna just turned to the others and said "For fuck's sake! Which of the people on the tech team has the most experience of being naked, or near naked, in public, and has the most field experience?" She matched Chuck, Jeff and Ellie's grins at that as they remembered her exploits over the last seven or eight years. "That's right, Me! So, now that we've agreed that I'm the logical tech person to go in, who's going in with me?"

That required more debate, Carina was out because she was pregnant, and Alex (Forrest) and Vicky would attract too much attention with their height, Rick looking like a male model and Mike's imposing bulk would also attract too much attention, at that point Mei-Ling spoke up to cut across the discussions as Anna had "Vinnie and I will go in! We don't stand out enough to attract too much attention and we have the experience to handle whatever we may come up against."

Chuck asked them if they were sure that they were comfortable with going in there naked, and when Mei-Ling assured him that they were, he hugged them, saying "Thank you". That of course had Anna saying "Hey, what about me?", so he rolled his eyes and pointed out that she LIKED people seeing her naked, but he hugged and kissed her as well. With the entry team determined, they sorted out the rest of the team that was going, Chuck, Sarah, Ellie (for medical issues), John, Jeff, Pete, Lucas, Zondra, Mike, Rick, Vicky, Sydney, Alex, and four fire teams from the support team if they needed heavier support. They took VSH1, with two armed VLs to get people into and out of the compound and provide support. They also set up extensive computer systems in VSH1 for their five person on-site tech team to use.

They landed VSH1 a little way from the compound and while the guys were getting the VLs ready to go in, they sent in a dozen tiny UAVs to locate Colin Davis, the virus designer. They'd located him by the time the VLs were ready, and identified a spot close by that wasn't covered by any cameras and was big enough to put both VLs down. Anna, Mei-Ling and Vinnie were going in one VL, with John and Sydney up front, while one of the fire teams went in the other, with Zondra and Mike up front, that meant that they had six fully armed operatives and two armed aircraft for support, but the fact that the three of them were going in naked against armed paramilitary guards wasn't something Chuck was at all happy about.

* * *

Unfortunately, Colin had gone inside the building by the time they arrived, so they had to go in looking for him. Anna had enough experience on missions to have no trouble chatting to people and casually ask where she might find her friend Colin, Colin Davis? Some friends in the old hacker circles where she'd known him had mentioned that he was out here nowadays?

Anna played her part perfectly and the people she talked to had no qualms in sending her, or rather her and her friends, his way, but unfortunately the ones running the compound had people planted all through the community and one of them overheard her asking. Colin was apparently a valuable commodity to them, because she immediately called for the guards. As soon as Chuck intercepted that call he called to tell Anna and the others over their earwigs to get out of there, they'd just reached Colin at that point so they knocked him out, Vinnie slung him over his shoulder and they headed for the door. As they did so, Chuck sent the VLs in.

The VLs touched down outside the entrance just as about a dozen security guards ran up, the fire team rolled out of the open doors of the VL they were riding in as it touched down and John and Zondra stood to fire over the windscreens in front of them, the suppressed AS VALs they were all using making no appreciable sound as they dropped the guards before any of them had a chance to raise their weapons.

The fire team were still confirming that the guards were properly down as Anna, Mei-Ling and Vinnie came running out with Davis and piled into the VL, but the woman who had called the guards on them came out the door right on their heels, with a razor blade in her hand. Sarah called a warning over the earwigs and Mei-Ling turned to take the woman out before she could get anyone with the razor, and luckily before she raised the alarm either.

* * *

With that, they all piled into the VLs and got the hell out of there. When they reached the VSH, Vinnie carried Davis inside while the others were converting the VLs from flight mode to transport mode, but Anna asked Vinnie to hold him up as she grabbed some sweatpants and put them on him.

When she'd completed her task and Vinnie dropped him on the seat to secure him comfortably, she took in the amused looks she was getting from the others "What? I had to look at his junk all the way out of that place and it WASN'T a pretty sight! Jeff's looks a hell of a lot better than his!" Pete spat his coffee all over the keyboard and grabbed a cloth to clean it up, giving her the same looks half the others were as he did so "Pete! We shared an apartment for nearly a year, and sometimes I came home early from clubbing and would catch him coming out of the bathroom because he wasn't expecting me, that's all!"

She saw Chuck having a good laugh at that and caught Sarah's eye, Sarah gave her a smile and a 'go ahead' signal so she did "And I don't think I could count how many times I've seen YOUR's in bed or in the bathroom Chuck!"

Ellie had caught the look and the signal, so she decided to buy into this "Oh come on Anna! Do you know how many women have seen what Chuck has? Or for that matter how many women have HAD Chuck? That's no claim to fame, I can assure you!"

By now, those who were still stupid enough to be drinking coffee after Anna's comment about Jeff had now sprayed their's around the cabin too, but it had had the desired effect, and no-one was thinking about Anna seeing Jeff naked any more.

Colin Davis was coming to now, so Chuck sat down to talk to him. After the initial panic and fruitless attempt to escape, Davis settled down and started to answer questions. He was horrified when Chuck showed him the security systems and paramilitary guards in the compound, and played him the call for the guards when people were looking for Davis, telling them to hurry because he was worth too much to lose!

Davis explained that a friend had recommended this nudist colony as a place to drop out where no-one would ever find him. When Chuck pointed out that this 'friend' had apparently been looking out for someone other than him, he looked despondent and agreed. That provided the opening to ask him about the Omen virus and Chuck, Ellie, Sarah, John, Zondra, Mei-Ling, all of them who were experts at reading people, agreed that his panic as he insisted that the Omen virus could never be released was very real.

Chuck calmed him down and assured him that they were here to get it so that it couldn't be released, and he, Sarah and some of the others showed him their IDs to confirm that they were working for the government. That got him calmed down enough to tell them about what the Omen virus was, when he said that there was two parts, and the part he had on the chip in his necklace couldn't be used without the other part, Jeff snorted, making Davis look at him, so Chuck explained that Jeff had worked that out from looking at the samples of the code that they could get their hands on, which prompted a much more impressed look from Davis.

It didn't take much to get Davis to tell them where to find the other part, which they needed to recover, because even if Davis did have the only full copy of the virus key, there were enough segments around that someone could probably make up something dangerous enough to do damage with the deployment mechanism which was the other part. When Davis explained that the other part was locked up at the Collective where he was working when he developed it, Chuck and Anna groaned, as they'd dealt with the Collective in the past. That made Chuck send a furtive look Sarah's way, which of course she didn't miss "Chuck? What aren't you telling us?" As Chuck fumbled with how to answer, Anna piped up "What he's trying to find a way to tell you without upsetting you is that only the Piranha can do this, I'm not good enough to get in and out of there without a fight and neither is anyone else on the team, it has to be the Piranha."

Davis sounded awestruck "You guys know the Piranha? How do you know someone at that level?"

Anna was watching Chuck as she answered "We're sort of elite ourselves, I'm the Lotus, and that's Roscoe, the Mongol and Gimli." She waved in Jeff, Pete and Lucas's direction.

Davis wasn't an idiot, so he turned to Chuck "So who is Agent Carmichael then?"

"Haven't you worked that out yet? He's the Piranha."

Chuck was ignoring them as he looked at Sarah, he knew WHY she was angry, he just couldn't see any other way to do this, Anna was right, he was the only one who had a chance of getting in there and out again without having to shoot it out with their guards.

Sarah looked at him with angry tears in her eyes and stalked off towards the tail of the plane, Chuck jumped up to follow her and talk to her straight away. They were still talking when the VSH landed outside of New York, and as soon as the rear ramp opened, they walked off far enough to finish their talk in private. She'd given in to the inevitable by the time they had the VLs in flight mode and the rest of the entry team were coming out of the VSH in full gear.

Chuck knew about the Collective's recruitment process, or rather entry test. The only way into the Collective was to beat the best they had in a hack-off contest, and the penalty for trying and failing was a bullet in the head. (He obviously didn't tell Sarah about that part.) That meant that whoever he'd go up against would have to be pretty damned good to stay alive, and as well as the very effective electronic and cyber security controls that they employed, they also had a force of mercenaries providing their physical security, so no part of this was going to be easy.

While Chuck had been talking to Sarah, the others had been putting together a site where he could quickly access all the tools he'd need to pull this off and the gear for him to take in, as well as organising some FBI strike teams to breach the building when the time came. Given what he'd seen (and been told by Colin) about the nature of the entry tests, Chuck knew he'd be sitting on one of the dual homed gateway machines, so he should be able to access this staging site to grab his tools and deploy them against the internal systems (or other systems). To pull this off, he had to run four operations, the first three pretty much concurrently and the fourth to finish them off.

The first operation was to get into all the internal systems and databases and pump any data or code stored on them out to the staging site they set up, so it could be analysed and followed up on once they took them down. The second operation was to gain control of the security and lighting/power systems, so that when the time came he could a) give the others access to the vault where the Omen deployment device was stored, and b) crash the security and power circuits to give them an escape route and let the strike team in to get control of the facility, capture anyone present and collect anything else that was in there.

The third operation was to actually win the hack-off part of the Collective's entry test (to avoid the bullet to the head), while the fourth operation had to wait for the first operation to be completed and terminated, because it was to insert worms and other malware into the internal network to wipe out all of their systems and databases, and he'd have to pull off the three non-test operations without anyone there realising what he was doing. While he was doing all of this, they had to have a team get into the facility from the roof and slip past or take down the guards without being discovered, and extract the Omen delivery device from the vault where it was stored (Colin had given Chuck all the detail he could about where the device was stored, how to identify it when they found it and what they would be up against).

* * *

Given that the others were all ready, Chuck rushed in and got changed into some unobtrusive (and marginal) protective gear, grabbed the bag that had been prepared for him and came running back out, hopping into the empty seat in the front of one as they took off. They dropped him off about a street away from the Collective's building and then flew up to the roof of the building, where they broke in and started heading down.

Chuck got into the building and jumped straight into the hack-off, flipping back and forth between multiple windows the entire time to cover up what he was doing in the background from the people looking over his shoulder. The tools he had on tap on the site they'd set up made quick work of getting into the Collective's systems and databases so he could siphon everything back out via the encrypted pipe he'd created to the site, and the same applied to getting control of the security and power systems. When the others were at the door of the vault, they signalled Chuck and he unlocked it for them. Thirty seconds later they were back outside with the delivery device in their possession and let him know. Chuck confirmed that the operation to extract the data was completed and sent the commands to lock down the server room and then crash the security and lighting systems, injecting the malware into the computer systems (appending the commands to disconnect the encrypted pipe to their external site at the end of the malware transmission), just before crashing the rest of the power systems and bolting. (The computer and database systems were on uninterrupted power supplies, so they'd stay up long enough for the malware to wipe out all the systems.)

As soon as he'd crashed the power systems, Chuck bolted, using wide spectrum imaging glasses disguised as sunglasses (a Novatech creation) to see where he was going in the almost complete dark, and from the gunshots he heard behind him as he left the room that the coders' area was in, he'd left none too soon. When someone grabbed his shoulder he spun to engage his attacker, but stopped when he saw it was Casey, and Zondra was there as well, so he grinned as he turned and resumed running towards the roof were the VLs were. As they were heading up to the roof with their team, they could hear the FBI strike teams breaching the building downstairs and engaging anyone too stupid to drop their weapons.

They were in the air less than thirty seconds after they reached the roof and headed back to the VSH as fast as they could. Sarah was in his arms almost as soon as he exited the VL and they stayed that way until the VSH took off. On the way back to V.A. they locked the device away and sat down to explain Colin's options to him (these being Witsec or working for the government, IE: Them).

With their work done for the moment, Chuck and Sarah went down to the tail end to find a quiet corner away from the others and talk, they'd managed to recover and contain the threat of the Omen virus, but Chuck had a lot of explaining to do about what Colin had let slip to her regarding the Collective's entry test. He knew that she'd forgive him eventually for doing what was necessary without telling her about the risks involved in that, but it'd take some smoothing over.


End file.
